We bought some deep red pomegranates at the grocery store and, rather than throw out the beautiful rind, we decided to make them into candle votives. Remembering Maxwell’s clementine candle project, we looked up the steps and modified them to make these holiday tealight holders.
• Read the full post at Apartment Therapy
We’ve blogged about raising chickens in New York and Los Angeles but it’s still sometimes hard to grasp the idea of having urban backyard chickens. One photographer, Todd Parsons, has documented San Francisco’s growing movement for backyard chickens with impressive results.
• Read the full post at Re-Nest
Lately I’ve been fixated on salt and pepper shakers or bowls — they are like mini objet d’art that also serve a purpose.
• Read the full post at Apartment Therapy
I realize that the above title doesn’t really make sense especially for those of us who have spent time in the hospital and cringed at the idea of eating there. However, there is a hospital that combines health care with exquisite cuisine that is designed to heal. At the Henry Ford West Bloomfield Hospital in Michigan food has become top priority and is something that foodies will definitely approve of.
I’ve included a few recipes from HenryFord.com which are perfect for light and healthy appetizers to accompany your Holiday feast. None of the recipes offered at this hospital are fried, processed, or have added salt. Organic and natural food is a must.
Asparagus & Fennel Salad
Ingredients:
* 30 ea. Asparagus (Trimmed)
* 1/2 bulb Shaved Fennel
* 2 oranges Orange Supreme’s
* 1 bunch Fresh Watercress
* 1/4 cup Marcona Almonds
* 8 oz. Honeydew Vinaigrette (see recipe below)
Directions:
1. Trim and discard the “woody” end of the asparagus stalks. This step is not necessary with Michigan asparagus as it is hand harvested. Season with olive oil, kosher salt and fresh-milled pepper and grill for 1 minute turning often. Cool asparagus and cut into bite size pieces and place in a large mixing bowl.
2. Shave the fennel very thin and add to the asparagus.
3. Add all remaining ingredients toss and serve.
Honeydew Vinaigrette
Ingredients:
* 1 ea. Fresh Honeydew (rind and seeds removed)
* 2 oz. Rice wine vinegar
* 2 oz. Fresh lemon juice
* 2 oz. Fresh lime juice
* 2 oz. Fresh Orange juice
* 3 Tb. Canola and olive oil blend
* 1 Tb. Fresh chopped mint
* 1 1/2 t. Kosher salt
Directions:
1. Chop honeydew and purée in a food processor.
2. Add puree and all the honeydew juice in a thick gauge sauce pan and reduce until only 1 quart is left. Remove from pan and cool to below 40 degrees.
3. Add all remaining ingredients except oil and mix well.
4. Add oil in a slow steady stream.
5. This will yield about 6 cups and the salad will only need about one cup, but this dressing will last for about 6 days in the refrigerator and is great on any salad, chicken and many other uses.
***
This salad is a perfect, light and healthy dish to pair with your turkey or whichever protein you decide to serve during the holidays. Although it may not by candied yams or mashed potatoes you’ll feel so much better after dinner and you won’t feel guilty. Plus you’ll have more room for dessert.
The next recipe is a perfect healthy solution for pre-dinner munchies. You’ll be busy in the kitchen while your friends and family eagerly await dinner. They’ll be hungry and constantly bugging you ‘When’s dinner ready’? This recipe is sure to keep them quiet!
Michigan Carrot Hummus
Ingredients:
* 7 oz. Carrots, peeled and chopped
* 1/2 Small white onion, diced
* 16 oz. Garbanzo beans, drained & rinsed
* 2 Tbsp. Fresh chopped garlic
* 1/2 oz. Tahini paste
* 2 oz. Lemon juice
* 1/2 oz. Lime juice
* 1/2 tsp. Toasted ground cumin
* 1/2 tsp. Toasted ground coriander
* Pinch Ground curry
* 2 tsp. Fresh chopped parsley
* 3 oz. Olive oil
* 1/4 tsp. Fresh ground ginger
* 1/2 tsp. Paprika
* 1 Tbsp. Kosher salt
Directions:
1. Boil carrots in salted water for 6-8 minutes.
2. Remove carrots from water and add garbanzo beans, onions, and garlic.
3. Simmer until the beans are hot, about 2-3 minutes.
4. Drain water and place bean mixture and carrots in a food processor.
5. Add remaining ingredients and puree until smooth.
Recipes provided by Chef Frank Turner
Image Credit: Stock Exchange
Post from: Blisstree
Making homemade dish soap—this is something we’ve been meaning to do for a long time and, now that we’ve got an easy recipe to follow, we’re out of excuses.
• Read the full post at Re-Nest
Gifts of the edible sort are some of our favorites to give or receive! A little packet of cookies or a jar of cocoa mix can is the perfect way of saying “from my kitchen to yours.” Here are our top choices for treats that can be made ahead, wrapped up, and survive a trip through the mail:
Sensitivity analysis is more and more frequently adopted by scientists to understand numerical models that are employed to simulate and predict natural and social-economic phenomena. Sensitivity analysis is the study of how the variation in the output of a model can be apportioned, qualitatively or quantitatively, to different sources of variation.
Scientists at the JRC’s Institute for the Protection and Security of the Citizen (IPSC) have been working on developing a new paradigm for sensitivity analysis, called global sensitivity analysis. The most recent evidence for the world wide recognition of the innovative methodologies developed at the JRC has been the invitation by the prestigious Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL, New Mexico) to Marco Ratto and Stefano Tarantola to hold a two-day training course on Global Sensitivity Analysis and Uncertainty Quantification (GSA-UQ). The course, held in Santa Fe on 18-19 November 2009, attracted 35 senior researchers from LANL, Sandia Labs (Albuquerque) and Lawrence Livermore National Lab (Livermore, California) involved in research and technology for national security related projects.
I have searched far and wide to find nice gift ideas for $10 and under. I don’t get credit for any of these links. I just wanted to provide some helpful ideas for you. I know money is tight for everyone.
I have chosen one picture per page. Click on the picture to visit the site. There are several different gift choices per page. So, don’t go by the picture alone. Check it out. Maybe you’ll find something for that special person or the hard to shop for person. Enjoy, and Happy Holidays.
Gift sets, candles, coffee and tea gifts, flags, delicious gourmet food, picture frames, sports gifts, desk items, and so much more! All for under $10!
Stuff for smart masses. A little bit of everything.
There are currently 1,473 items for $10 or under.
Lee Valley has some neat gifts.
Shower mousse and body mist gift ideas for $10 and under .
Even FAO Schwarz has gifts for $10 and under!
e-CorporateGifts.com
Current now offers a section of gifts all priced under $10. With such a wide assortment of items to choose from we’re sure to have something for any occasion.
Colonial Candle has some beautiful gifts for $10 and under.
Pier 1 Imports has some great gift ideas.
Some really nice things at Fashion Bug.
Irawoods.com has some cute stuff. This ionic hair dryer for only $9.91. I swear by ionic hair dryers.
For those of you who are religious…
paracletepress.com has some really
nice things there.
Serrv.org has some
very beautiful gifts!
Insider selling has been massively outpacing insider buying, by 82x, according to FInviz data via Zero Hedge.
ZH: In the most recent data set, $11.6 million in stock was purchased by insiders, while a whopping $957 million was sold. And somehow pundits are still spinning this mass orchestrated sell into the bid by those in the know as a bull market.
Note the current selling vs. buying ratio is much higher than the 22x back in June. Thus while a high ratio isn't always a problem, clearly the relative increase has been enormous. Executives merely selling in order to fund their Christmas purchases? Tax-related selling? One can only hope.
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As the negotiations over the ACTA treaty continue in secret, one of the more frustrating aspects is how defenders of ACTA repeatedly conflate “counterfeit goods” with “copyright infringement.” Witness Senator Evan Bayh’s nonsensical response to being asked about ACTA, where it becomes clear quite quickly that he’s unfamiliar with the most basic information on the subject. He switches back and forth between counterfeiting and copyright as if they’re the same thing, and seems to think that any treaty on the matter must be good.
But, an even more annoying part of all this is the use of fear mongering over “counterfeit goods” as some huge problem that has to be solved, when the evidence increasingly suggests otherwise. The copyright lobbyists are using the cover of some mythical massive counterfeiting problem to push for unnecessary and potentially dangerous copyright law changes, but even the counterfeiting claims are suspect. In the past, we’ve noted that both the GAO and the OECD have noted that the “problem” of counterfeiting has been massively inflated by lobbyists.
And, a new study suggests that even the counterfeit goods that do get sold aren’t really a huge problem to the original manufacturers (thanks to Dave Barnes for sending this in) — if there a problem at all. In a study that was actually carried out by a former brand manager at LVMH, it was discovered that people don’t view counterfeit goods as a substitute to the real goods. People aren’t being tricked — they know they’re buying counterfeits, and others know that they have counterfeit goods as well:
“Consumers are a lot smarter than we may give them credit for — just because you’ve got a nice fake doesn’t mean you’re going to get away with it.”
But, even more importantly, it looks like counterfeit products often act as a stepping stone to get people to go forward and buy the original version:
“The counterfeit actually served as a placebo for brand attachment,” she said. “People were becoming increasingly attached to the real brand even though they never possessed it at all.”Forty-six percent of the counterfeit-bag owners bought the authentic products within two and a half years, she said. Shoppers were willing to pay $786 for a real luxury bag….
So, for all the reports of “harm” done by counterfeit products, here’s a study suggesting that it actually helps build brand loyalty, and appears to often lead to the counterfeit buyer later buying a massively expensive real offering in a relatively short time frame. As some are noting, this suggests that the counterfeit goods act as advertising for the real goods. These are the sorts of things that would probably be useful to discuss with those negotiating ACTA. If only those discussions weren’t all happening behind closed doors due to “national security” issues.
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Filed under: Plants/Manufacturing, Crossover, Chevrolet, GM, GMC, Canada
It’s safe to say that 2009 has been the most difficult year in the 101-year history of General Motors. But while most of the news coming out of GM has been tough to swallow, the Detroit, MI-based automaker has had one very good piece of news: its new products are faring well in the marketplace. And of all the new products GM brought to market this year, none has higher volume than its Theta-based crossovers built at the CAMI plant in Ingersoll, Ontario. The 2010 Chevrolet Equinox and the GMC Terrain have been successful enough that The General has added a third shift, scheduled regular overtime for the rank and file and even spent $93 million on a new body shop to increase production capacity by 40,000 units per year.
But GM was spending big bucks and building very important vehicles at a plant that it jointly owned with partner Suzuki. Well, GM changed that last week when it announced that it was buying Suzuki’s stake in the Canadian facility. GM has not disclosed the amount of money it paid to take over full interest of the facility, but we’re guessing the total wasn’t nearly as much as the cost of a new plant, which can cost over $1 billion. But while the news was good for GM and the people of Ingersoll, we’re guessing the folks who work at closing plant in the U.S. aren’t all that happy about this development. Hit the jump to read over GM’s brief press release.
Gallery: Review: 2010 Chevrolet Equinox
[Source: General Motors]
Continue reading GM buys remaining stake in CAMI plant from Suzuki
GM buys remaining stake in CAMI plant from Suzuki originally appeared on Autoblog on Mon, 07 Dec 2009 11:29:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Using Street View can be a lot of fun and can be a really immersive experience. Using Google Earth takes it one step further with the possibility to view any place on Earth, and on the Moon and Mars as well. But even with the biggest high-def monitor, in fact even with two of them, you’re not going to get close to the experience of Google’s Liquid Galaxy, an eight-screen contraption which completely surrounds the user with Street View and Google Earth data from a modified Google Earth Client.
The project started out as a tool for visualizing Street View imagery in completely immersible way. Several Google engineers got to work, linked several computers to eight screens and managed to get them to work together streaming Street View imagery. After every thing came together, they also set out to create a deck to support the screens and be presentable and mobile enough to be carried around to whatever conference Google may need to show off its geo projects.
This was done in time for the Google I/O 2009 conference in San Francisco where it made quite an impression. Watching StreetView images fly by can be fun, but now that the hardware part was pretty much completed, the developers wanted to take it a step further, so they got a software engineer from the Earth team to get involved. He built a modifi… (read more)
Vevo is just a day away from launch and it’s still making some rather big announcements, though not entirely unexpected ones. The music-video joint venture between Universal Music Group and Sony Music has just added its third media partner, EMI, which will provide the site with content from the label’s artists, as well as those from indie labels represented by the company’s distribution services. The label will not joint as an equity holder like the initial two, but rather just as a content partner.
“Our agreement with EMI Music marks a milestone in our mission to provide fans everywhere with the world’s best premium music video programming, when, where and how they want it,” Rio Caraeff, president & CEO of VEVO, stated. “We look forward to collaborating with EMI on introducing our users to new professionally-created entertainment products through a truly interactive platform. VEVO is about much more than just high-quality videos; it is also about original programming and strengthening the connection between artists and fans through a dynamic and engaging experience.”
For now, this leaves Warner Music Group as the only major label to be left out of the project. There were talks that it too was negotiating with the site along with EMI, but it looks like the negotiati… (read more)
The Social Care Institute for Excellence has signed an agreement with its French counterpart to work together to improve quality in social care services. (24 Nov)
Age Concern and Help the Aged has called on the Government to do more to tackle fuel poverty, as figures show that the number of winter deaths in the UK has spiked. (24 Nov)
The Princess Royal Trust for Carers has welcomed the announcement of £1 million in funding for young carers through the National Young Carers Coalition. (27 Nov)
The King’s Fund has announced that Chris Ham, professor of health policy and management at the University of Birmingham, will succeed Niall Dickson as Chief Executive of the charity in April 2010. (27 Nov)
Following last week’s unearthing of trademark filings for Dragon Quest IX’s possible European subtitles, gaming blog Siliconera has dug up another one. This time it’s a registration for North America.
Personal Care at Home Bill
The Times, The Daily Telegraph, Daily Mail, Ananova, MSN UK , Tiscali and Channel 4 News report that the Secretary of State’s planned care reforms will result in spending cuts on research, development and public health promotions. (25, 26 Nov)
In his commentary in The Times, Nigel Edwards advocates funding care and support with social insurance.
In The Guardian, David Brindle writes that we need to find out more about how AA and DLA are used before we defend the current system. (25 Nov)
The Daily Mail reports that government funding for dementia research has fallen. Discussing the same story, The Times asks how Gordon Brown’s promise of free care at home for the elderly will be funded. (27 Nov)
General Care
In response to a previous letter criticising his stance, Lord Lipsey writes in The Times that his position on residential care is that each individual should be able to make an informed choice about what is best for them in old age. (23 Nov)
The Guardian announces its Public Services Awards. Winners include:
–Sheffield City Council for its overhaul of its care services for older people
-The University of York’s ‘Minds in Motions’ program which encourages undergraduates to volunteer with dementia patients and their carers
-Cornwall’s Arts for Health team, which enables older people to participate in creative activities
–Carers Direct, which has supported carers by centralising information and setting up a helpline. (25 Nov)
The Evening Standard reports that a pensioner has died after 6 months of neglect at a care home. (26 Nov)
Financial Times writes that insurers are now offering more flexible terms on plans that cover the cost of care in later life, including money-back guarantees. (28 Nov)
The Observer reports that thousands of families in Wales who were overcharged for care home fees may miss the deadline for backdated claims. (29 Nov)
Dementia in the press
The Daily Telegraph reports on the story of a 90-year-old woman with dementia who died after wandering away from her care home wearing only a thin dress. (23 Nov)
In The Guardian, Roger Fisken responds to criticisms of hospital staff over their treatment of those with dementia, saying that difficulties arise from a lack of information and time. (24 Nov)
Following on from the Minister for Care Services’ announcement of fundamental changes in the treatment of dementia patients, The Guardian investigates how better health and social care could meet the human rights agenda. (25 Nov)
The Daily Telegraph covers Sir Gerry Robinson’s description of care homes’ treatment of dementia patients in Britain as ‘appalling’. (28 Nov)
The Mail on Sunday includes a question-and-answer feature on dementia and how it can be distinguished from depression. (29 Nov)
In Lyon, France the Peugeot 307 CC FiSyPAC FCV hybrid is making an appearance Dec. 7 – 11, 2009. In 2006 the same company showed off the Peugeot 207 ePure at the Paris Motor Show, but many improvements have been made since then.
For instance the Peugeot 307 CC FiSyPAC is based upon the 307 coupe cabriolet but with improvements in fuel cell and battery performance over the 207 ePure. The Peugeot 207 ePure has a driving range of about 218 miles whereas the Peugeot 307 CC FiSyPAC has a driving range of over 300 miles.
The 207 ePure was powered by a Genepac 20 kw fuel cell. Since that time and with help of French researchers the Peugeot 307 FCV’s fuel cell has increased its efficiency by 20-percent and the fuel cell’s lifespan by 400-percent.
The lithium ion batteries have also increased their efficiency and output since 2006, and the Peugeot 307 fuel cell vehicle now has a range equivalent to 62 mpg. Let’s also hope that the acceleration of the Peugeot 307 FCV has increased over the 207 ePure as it came in at a pretty ho-hum 0 – 60 mph in about 15 seconds.
Professor Linda K. Kerber, the May Brodbeck Professor in the Liberal Arts and Sciences, was inducted into the Iowa Women’s Hall of Fame in Des Moines on August 29, 2009. Please join us as we celebrate Professor Kerber, who has devoted her life and career to the empowerment of women through a better understanding of women’s history.
Thursday, December 10, 2009
4:00-5:30 p.m. (program at 4:30 p.m.)
Iowa Women’s Archives, 3rd floor, Main Library
Since joining the History Department faculty in 1971 Professor Kerber has inspired and mentored generations of students. Her creative intellect, influential leadership, and invigorating teaching place her at the top of her field. She is a champion of the humanities and a steadfast supporter of archives. She has achieved international distinction for her contributions to our understanding of gender, citizenship, and the legal and political status of women.
Iowa Women’s Hall of Fame: http://www.women.iowa.gov/about_women/HOF/index.html
A new specially modified stirring paddle allows low viscosity fluids to be injected into the sample can during a test in the RVA. This enhances the RVA “miniature pilot plant” application in which the RVA is used as a tiny batch cooker to produce ultra small scale food formulations in a very low cost, efficient and rapid new product development process.
The RVA can make 10-20 grams of products and process multiple batches a day whereas larger-sized pilot processing plants can only produce one or two batches per day and may require thousands of liters per batch. Sample may also conveniently be withdrawn from the RVA can for other tests using the modified paddle.
RVA “Miniature Pilot Plant” applications include manufacture of yoghurt and other cultured soft dairy products, ice cream pre-mix, cream cheese, soft dairy desserts, and tofu, assessment of enzyme activity for bioethanol production and assessment of enzyme and ingredient effects in baking and cheese making.
