There’s been some buzz about a recent research report claiming that streaming services are popular. There have been a few such reports, and there’s not much surprising in them. They basically point out that if people can stream certain content, that’s often easier than firing up a non-user-friendly file sharing service to get the same content. But, does that necessarily lead to the conclusion pushed by many in the industry and the press that “streaming kills piracy”? Not at all. As the folks at Freakbits note, this particular study didn’t even bother to separate out authorized streaming services and unauthorized streaming services — and includes YouTube in the calculations, which (as Hollywood keeps trying to let us know) often has a fair amount of unauthorized content. So, perhaps, people are suggesting that if the content is just “streamed” it doesn’t count as “piracy.” And, as someone who doesn’t like the term “piracy” in the first place, perhaps that makes sense. But it does not appear that this is what’s being argued. Instead, people are just assuming that all streaming is authorized, when that’s hardly the case.
I’ve talked at length about the importance of vitamin D in health – particularly its role in maintaining immunity and protecting fertility. Moreover, insufficient and deficient levels of vitamin D are linked to chronic disease: autoimmune disorders, infertility, cancer, depression, chronic pain, atherosclerosis, osteoporosis, cognitive dysfunction, you name it. This nutrient – truly a pre-hormone – is critical to overall health and well-being. It is vital to health.
Sadly, approximately 70% of children suffer from suboptimal levels of vitamin D and so do most adults. While most of us in good health can manufacture vitamin D from adequate sun exposure, we’re still not getting adequate sun exposure. We spend our days indoors, and when we do venture outside we slather ourselves in UV-blocking sun creams which may very well block ultra violet light, but also block our bodies’ ability to produce vitamin D.
Now that the days have grown dark and the sun hangs low in the sky, we’re receiving fewer and fewer of its valuable rays. After all, the shortest day of the year is but a few weeks away. So as the days become colder and shorter, it’s wise to investigate alternative sources of vitamin D. Fortunately, nourishing foods offer a good source of vitamin D – and that’s without fortification.
Pastured Lard
Believe it or not, lard is a health food. Yes, really. You see hogs are monogastric animals – that is they have one stomach, and like all monogastric animals, they store vitamin D in their fat. Of course, hogs, much like humans must have access to adequate sunlight in order to produce adequate levels of vitamin D in their fat. The manner in which an animal is raised greatly affects the nutritional quality of its meat, fat and milk. Recent nutritional analysis indicates that the lard from a pasture-raised hog contains significantly more vitamin D than that of one that has been conventionally raised.
Pastured lard can be used in a variety of ways: homemade mayonnaise and potato chips, in biscuits and pie crusts or for frying and braising.
Cod Liver Oil
A Note on Seafood
Fish and shellfish have played an enormous role in traditional diets cross-globally; however threats of overfishing, polluted waters and damaged the sustainability of these foods. Visit Seafood Watch for more information about making sustainable choices in your seafood consumption.
Cod liver oil, especially fermented cod liver oil (see sources) is also a potent source of naturally occurring vitamin D as well as pre-formed vitamin A. Just 1 teaspoon of high vitamin fermented cod liver oil contains approximately 1950 IU of vitamin D – though the vitamin content may vary slightly from batch to batch since a good cod liver oil will not be augmented by potentially toxic synthetic additives.
Cold-water, Oily Fish
Oily fish provide an excellent food-based source of vitamin D. A 3-oz portion of sardines provide approximately 228 IU vitamin D. Herring, like other oily fish, is an excellent source of vitamin D with one 3-oz portion providing approximately 576 IU vitamin D. 100 grams of wild-caught, canned salmon with bones provides 763 IU vitamin D. 3 ounces of mackerel sashimi will provide approximately 300 IU of vitamin D.
While pickled herring may take some getting used too, other oily fish can be served in a variety of ways. Consider sardines on crackers or in a salad, and canned salmon can be easily served in a chowder or in my favorite version as salmon cakes with homemade wasabi mayonnaise.
Oysters on the Half Shell
Oysters are nutritional powerhouses, offering zinc, vitamin B12 and iron in addition to 269 IU vitamin D. While some folks prefer their oysters naked, dressing them with vinegar, relishes or even Moroccan Preserved Lemon can be a nice change of pace.
Pastured Egg Yolk
Pastured egg yolk, like pastured lard, offers more vitamin D than an egg from a conventionally raised hen; however, its a small amount by comparison to pastured lard and oily fish.
Caviar & Roe
While you’re at the sushi bar enjoying your vitamin D-packed mackerel sashimi, consider adding an order of ikura or other roe. Fish roe, like concentrated bubbles of nutrients, offer a fair amount of vitamin D as well as other fat-soluble nutrients. Roe can also be served over pasta, in dips or on blini in the Russian style.
Concrobium Mold Control is a product that fights and prevents mold without using bleach or ammonia. It also does not contain any VOCs. I personally do not have a moldy spot to really try this product out, but I do get a little pink mold along the molding of my shower door that is hard to clean. I sprayed Concrobium Mold Control on this spot, and the pink mold did wipe away easier than with a sponge alone. I also sprayed the entire molding hoping that this product would prevent future mold growth.
Traditionally, homeowners have tackled mold with bleach solutions, essentially poisoning the mold micro-organism. That leaves users and their families exposed to harmful chemicals.
And bleach only provides short term relief from mold. When the mold reappears, the toxic cleaning cycle begins again…
Concrobium Mold Control® is a revolutionary way to fight mold, with no bleach, ammonia or VOCs.
Unlike traditional “wet kill” products, Concrobium works as it dries – hardening over the moldy surface to form an invisible film that physically crushes the mold micro-organism underneath.
And Concrobium stays on surfaces to provide continual resistance against mold regrowth.
Concrobium Mold Control states their product is eco-friendly and a “100% natural solution”, although full disclosure of the solution is not given other than stating “two other ingredients” are combined with baking soda to create a “patented tri-salt polymer”. It certainly has to be better than bleach.
Disclosure: I was sent a quart of Concrobium Mold Control in order to complete this review. No positive or negative assurances were given prior to reviewing this product.
Youngsters can be inconsiderate when it comes to one another’s names.
Names image: sxc.hu
If it’s an unusual name, they might make fun of it. If an an adult mispronounces it, they may laugh and hurt a tot’s feelings.
I heard one principal handle this very well when youngsters were mixing up two students’ names on purpose. One didn’t mind, but the other was close to tears.
She had a discussion and mentioned the importance of a person’s names. She emphasized that each person’s name is special. This led to a discussion on where the students’ names originated and what they meant.
So they shared whether they were named for a parent, grandparent or other family member. Was that name a special one for mom or dad? Did it have a special meaning when defined? When the discussion was over, the children were proud of their names and realized that each person and their name was special.
I used this same approach in a second grade class when one of the boys was deliberately mispronouncing another student’s name. This led to the students sharing their names and I shared where mine originated, too.
Do you discuss the importance of family names and why you named your children as you did?
Eco Factor: Catamaran equipped with solar panels to harvest renewable energy.
Sunreef Yachts has introduced a new catamaran, which combines sustainability and luxury in a hydrodynamic superstructure. Dubbed the ONE FIFTY, the 45m superyacht is influenced by the design of racing cars, which minimizes resistance to better fuel efficiency.
Once mid-to late winter arrives or once you trees are free of foliage is a good time to prune. You can hold off until early spring, right before spring foliage starts but it’s up to you. One pro of spring pruning is that it you won’t be so flipping cold while outside – and it’s not as easy to prune well while wearing tons of warm layers.
Why prune?
To remove any dead, diseased, or broken branches.
To get rid of any suckers or wild growth.
If you’re transplanting a tree, pruning can help compensate for root loss.
To keep a tree within your yard boundaries.
To aid production of larger flowers or fruit.
To shape your tree in a specific way.
To keep branches away from creating potential hazards such as branches that are getting to close to power lines or a house window.
There are a few times you’ll want to prune typically – at first planting which helps the growing process, to get the tree to the desired height (which of course will vary), and after the tree is at the height you want you’ll want to prune when the above situations apply; for example broken or diseased branches.
The best way to learn to prune is with visuals or actual professional help if you’re nervous about it – cutting a tree at first can seem scary. You can hire a pro for the first one or two pruning sessions, watch them, then keep their skills in mind when you prune. OR get a book with adequate visuals. Most general gardening books have sections on pruning, just make sure the instructions come with images to help you along. One good, but slightly older book you can refer to is American Horticultural Society Pruning & Training. I like this book because it’s really broken up well into easy bite sized chunks with tutorials that take you step by step through the pruning process. That said, it might be more book than you need if you don’t prune often. You can also see some online pruning guidelines, but a take along book is still better IMO.
For kitties who long for a little northern charm, check out the Loyal Luxe Chalet for Cats. Designed and made in Quebec, Canada, these cardboard creations are inspired by Canadian-style chalets. You can even customize the design on the facade by choosing the antlers, a fish, a bird, or a little sign where you can write kitty’s name.
3 large sheets fresh yuba (bean curd skin) about 16 inches / 40 cm in diameter, cut in
half, or 3 large rectangular sheets dried yuba
1/3 vegetarian broth
1 1/2 T light soy sauce
2 t unrefined sugar
1/2 T roasted sesame oil
Oil for deep frying
METHOD: If using the dried yuba, handle the sheets carefully and soak in warm water
for 5-10 minutes. Pat them dry and cut in half.
Mix the broth, soy sauce, sugar and sesame oil in a small saucepan and heat
until the sugar is dissolved. Pour into a bowl and allow to cool slightly
Spread a 12 x 6 inch (30 x 15 cm) piece of fine cheesecloth or thin white cotton sheeting
over a cookie sheet. Place a half-sheet of the fresh or reconstituted dried
yuba on the sheet.
Brush the yuba with soy sauce mixture. Cover with another piece of yuba and
brush. Repeat until all of the yuba and sauce is used up. If there is some
sauce left over, pour it over the yuba and brush evenly towards the edges.
Roll the stacks of sheets into a compact cylinder and wrap it in the cloth.
Tie ends with white string. Steam the roll, covered, over boiling water for 10
minutes.
Remove carefully and cut the roll into 4 sections, diagonally. Heat the oil
350F/180C in wok or skillet, or deep fryer. Drop in the rolls, standing back to
avoid splattering and deep fry until golden brown. This will take only a few
seconds. Drain the rolls on paper.
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To serve, slice diagonally into 1/2 inch / 13 mm rounds and serve hot or cold.
NOTES: This is a traditional yuba (bean curd skin) recipe used by Chinese Buddhist
vegetarians. It makes a delicious appetizer. Leftovers can be chopped and used
in dim-sum stuffings or rice and noodle dishes. If you use fresh yuba, which
needs no soaking, this dish is very quick to prepare. It’s very easy to make
whether you use fresh or dried yuba.
It hasn’t even been officially announced yet, and already, it’s been delayed. Take-Two CEO Ben Feder announced at a financial meting that they will be delaying a triple A, yet-to-be-announced title, from its supposed 2010 release schedule
Some Senators have introduced a bill that would limit early termination fees from mobile operators, saying they couldn’t charge more than the subsidy they provided for the phone itself, and that the rules for any early termination fee needed to be quite clear. Not surprisingly, the mobile operators and their lobbyists are saying this is “unnecessary” because (due mainly to gov’t pressure, not competition, as they claim) the operators have already made the ETF process less ridiculous by going with pro-rated fees based on how long is left on a contract. Of course, if it’s true that the law is unnecessary, then it’s not clear why they’re against it…
Traditions are significant and an important part of the holidays. They help us connect with our families, create cherished memories, and make the holidays more meaningful. I have special memories of my own family’s holiday traditions from when I was a child. When my husband and I started our own family, we wanted to make new traditions of our own.
Each Christmas season, we add to the family holiday scrapbook which we have kept since our child was born. We have also bought her an ornament each year for the tree. Last year, we started a new tradition of buying holiday pajamas to wear on Christmas Eve.
Image: istockphoto
Starting your own family tradition is easy and fun. Here are a few ideas to get you started:
Personal Ornament – Purchase a special ornament for each member of the family symbolizing his or her interests or accomplishments the year before. Many malls have Christmas stores open during the holiday season with a range of ornaments catering to almost any interest.
Holiday Pajamas – Each year either buy new or wear a favorite pair of special holiday-themed pajamas on the eve of your holiday. Sitting around in cozy Christmas PJs with a warm cider in our hands is one of our favorite things to do after our daughter has gone to bed on Christmas Eve.
Cookie Swap – Exchanging cookies and other treats is a great way to incorporate the giving spirit of the holiday season. Have your friends come over for a desert swap, bringing their own batches of cookies to share. Set up a special table with a festive tablecloth and some great holiday plates. Noritake has great holiday tableware, like the Aria Christmas and Palace Christmas patterns that will make your cookies look as good as they taste.
Holiday Volunteering – If you are looking for a way to bring meaning to the holiday season, helping out others is a good way. There are many opportunities to help those in need. Visit an nursing home to sing carols or just talk to the residents there, or bring toys to patients in a children’s hospital, or help serve food in a soup kitchen.
Holiday Movie or Story Night – Choose a favorite movie, wear your holiday pajamas, and watch it together. Don’t forget to make some hot cocoa and cookies. If movies aren’t your thing, have a family member read his or her favorite holiday story.
Festive Music – Whatever your holiday celebrations entail, be sure to include some favorites music during your holiday activities. Pandora.com has some holiday stations that play a variety of holiday music, from Christmas pop tunes to classical masterpieces.
Yearly Scrapbook – There are many ways to preserve memories for upcoming years. Save photos in one particular holiday book, or use a pamphlet stitch to bind holiday cards together into a booklet. Family members could write their favorite moments from the holiday that year or save their favorite recipes. Next year, pull out the scrapbook and reminisce about past holiday moments together.
Use one of these suggestions or come up with new holiday traditions of your own to celebrate the spirit of the holiday season. Togetherness and spending quality time with loved ones always creates special memories that will be appreciated for years to come.
Green living is good; great in fact. However, some green issues are more complex than others and require more thought than simply jumping on the bandwagon. Following are some simple green issue that sound good and easy to solve, but in reality there’s more to consider.
Green cars are good! Green cars do save money and reduce your CO2. That said there is a cost to the planet for each new car made; even highly efficient, small cars. If your old car is small, you don’t drive much, or you have a newer car it may not make sense to replace it simply to get a super efficient car. Tires, seats, the body, electrical parts and so on all take energy and materials to make. If you’ve got a big old gas guzzler that you drive non-stop, then yeah, a newer energy efficient car is likely worth it. But if not, you may be better off in the meantime simply using smarter green driving tactics.
Green homes rock! Green homes in general are a good goal. Using green building tactics can make your remodel a healthier experience and green homes can save you money. There are however difference between a healthy home and a green built home. Many of the aspects that go into creating a green home can be healthy – i.e zero voc paint but some green aspects such as solar panels or energy efficient appliances may be healthy for the earth (which is good for humans), but you need to go beyond that for total human health. You need to consider what’s inside your home both related to air quality and furnishings. You need to clean your home with green cleaners. Your home should have healthy HVAC, ventilation and filtration systems. Green and healthy do come together, but not in total. You need to consider both issues.
Energy efficient appliances save resources! They do to a point but human habits save more. For example if you have an energy efficient washer and dryer, and you always run hot water loads and dry everything, you’re not being as responsible as someone with an older set who washes on cold and hang dries. An energy efficient stove won’t save as much energy as a simple microwave. Energy efficient TVs are swell but watching one all the time is not as eco-friendly as the family with an old set who instead of watching TV gets out into nature for a hike. Along with considering your appliances also consider your actual use habits.
The kids have spoken, and they say they belong to the group of “Gamers.” Children as young as 2 years old in the United States have been found to consider themselves as gamers, with 9.7 million of
Mazdaspeed2 Concept – Click above for high-res image gallery
As cool as some of those custom Ford Fiestas are at the LA Auto Show, these even tidier Mazda2 customs really jumped out at us. Okay, maybe not all of the concepts so much as the “Mazdaspeed2” you see above. The Active2 Surf and Active2 Snow barely registered when we saw this green and grey fun machine. Dubbed the 2Evil Special and not really an official Mazdaspeed2 at all, this concept blends weekend track car with urban commuter in just the right proportions.
The other two concepts aren’t quite as eye-catching as the 2Evil, but are fun nonetheless. The Active2 Surf has a slightly restyled exterior, 17-inch wheels, an H&R coil over suspension and was painted a bright green with MINI-like white wheels and mirror caps. We really dug the carbon fiber surfboard in the Thule roof rack, too. The Active2 Snow gets similar bodywork tweaks, along with the 17-inch wheels and the H&R setup with another Thule roof rack sporting matching snowboards.. Both cars also wear Active2 graphics. These two cars look like they are going to be easily duplicated by accessing the Mazda Accessories catalog.
Meanwhile, the 2Evil sits even lower thanks to its H&R coil-over setup, and is visually lowered even more courtesy of the aggressive body kit with its curb-scraping front lip and deep side skirts. The 2Evil also includes a new diffuser and spoiler in the back, limo-black windows, Le Mans-winning Mazda 787B tribute graphics, 17-inch wheels wrapped in Yokahama Advan tires, and a Magna performance exhaust system. The green highlights really bring the whole thing together to make it look like a spec series racer. Now if Mazda could just shoehorn in the Mazdaspeed3 turbo mill, they’d really be onto something. We can just imagine Grand-Am adding a CC (commuter car) class for fun little runabouts like this Mazda2, the MINI Cooper, Fiesta, Fiat 500, Honda Fit and the like.
Monkeys with bared teeth and wild eyes, lumpy looking cheetahs, and a toothy looking polar bear are all residents of the delightfully unkempt Bologna Zoological Museum. Ferrets lay in taxonomic chaos next to mottled gray dolphins. The sleek design of the lobby gives way to rows and rows of cabinets filled with strangely shaped animals. But the enjoyably shabby museum disguises a noble past. It traces its roots all the way back to the very first curiosity cabinet.
Ulisse Aldrovandi’s interests ranged widely from botany to zoology to geology, a word he is thought to have coined. At the young age of 31, after serving out a sentence for heresy, Aldrovandi began collecting anything of natural interest he could get his hands on. Aldrovani also had a taste for the bizarre and wrote a compendium, the Monstrorium Historia, of all known human and animal monstrosities of which he was constantly seeking for collection.
Aldrovandi would eventually assemble over 18,000 “diversità di cose naturali” creating the first great cabinet of curiosity and one of the first natural history museums, though open only to scholars and aristocrats. Ole Worm, who was to create one of the most famous cabinets of curiosity modeled his after Aldrovandi’s, and Linnaeus, who created the system of taxonomy, called him the father of natural history. Today the Bologna Zoological museum contains many of the original zoological pieces collected by Aldrovandi and maintains a wonderful cabinet of curiosity atmosphere.
This afternoon’s rumor about Japan dumping $100 billion worth of Treasuries was great for raising the hair on traders’ backs, but it never made sense.
Japan is freaked out about its soaring yen, and the last thing they want to do is make a move that would hurt the US Dollar, which is all dumping Treasuries would do.
Alas, the government is now explicitly denying the reports, according to Reuters.
Remember, if anything they’re going to print yen, and buy Treasuries.
A quick update to my post yesterday on the bill to repeal mandatory minimums in Massachusetts. I wrote that the bill died on the way to the House. An important correction: the House did recess without acting on the Senate bill, but Barbara Dougan of Families Against Mandatory Minimums points out in the comments that the bill isn’t dead — the House can pick it up in the new year. She also added the link to the full Senate bill, which is here.
Today also saw the release of a report from the Boston Foundation, detailing Massachusetts’ spiraling spending on corrections — and the negligible payback for the millions of taxpayer dollars spent to lock people up.
The report shows that corrections spending in Massachusetts is higher than spending for higher education, social services or public health. In the last decade, the Department of Corrections budget grew 12% and spending on probation grew 163%. During the same period, the budget for higher education dropped by 7%.
The report says these staggering numbers point to “the state’s willingness to pay nearly any amount for criminal justice policies currently in place without evidence of better outcomes” and raise some important questions, such as:
Castlevania: Lords of Shadow is off to 3D land. Will it live up to the expectations of solid Castlevania fans? David Cox of Konami sits down with the Official Xbox Magazine UK to reveal the new gimmicks
Audi e-tron concept – Click above for high-res image gallery
When introduced at the Frankfurt Motor Show in September, Audi boasted its all-electric e-tron was fitted with four electric motors producing “230 kW (313 horsepower) and 4,500 Nm (3,319.03 pound-feet) of torque.” While the e-tron’s styling may have raised a few eyebrows, we were notably moved by the quoted torque figure – especially when we considered that the twin-turbocharged Mercedes-Benz SL65 AMG, one of the most powerful vehicles on the road, makes 738 lb-ft in comparison. We were stupefied by the number, and it set off more than a few debates among our group, but Audi made no attempt to clarify…
The team at Automobile Magazine, initially duped like everyone else, has recognized that Audi was quoting torque measured at the wheels, not at the output shaft – the industry standard. Measuring torque at the wheels takes the multiplication effect of the transmission and final drive gears into account. The resulting figures are generally ten-fold of what they would be at the crank (meaning cars like a 3.6-liter Chevrolet Malibu packs a similar 3,115 lb-ft of torque). Audi’s e-tron torque figures are not exactly dishonest, but they are using a completely different evaluation without making mention of it in the press release. Long story short, Automobile estimates the e-tron makes about 252 lb-ft of torque, or a bit less than the Tesla Roadster’s 273 lb-ft.
Luca Leonardi alerts us to the news that at least some politicians in the UK are pushing back against Peter Mandelson’s Digital Economy Bill, with Lord Lucas specifically pointing out that the real problem seemed to be one of the entertainment industry’s own making:
“We need to bear in mind that the problems now facing the industry are, to quite a large extent, of their own creation,” he said. “The industry has been extremely slow to listen to the demands of its customers, and has had something of an abusive relationship with them, seeking to punish them before thinking of how to serve them better.
“It has taken a decade for the industry to produce sensible alternatives to illegal file-sharing, and the fact that a generation of people have become used to an illegality comes down to the industry’s sluggishness. It is still slow.”
Lucas, who considers himself a libertarian, also questioned the use of IP addresses as identifying who was doing something online:
“I am not at all clear that we have the technology to go beyond the IP address, which comes into my router, to identify which user of perhaps one or two dozen who have access, has done the illegal downloading,” he told the peers.
“We need to be very clear that we do not tip people into losing their internet connection, or worse, on a technically fallible basis.”
Nice to see at least someone pushing back on the reasoning behind the bill.
A quick update to my post yesterday on the bill to repeal mandatory minimums in Massachusetts. I wrote that the bill died on the way to the House. An important correction: the House did recess without acting on the Senate bill, but Barbara Dougan of Families Against Mandatory Minimums 
