Corn based anti-bacterial film wrap

Filed under: Science, Health & Medical

The wonders of modern science never cease to amaze me (and I am not being sarcastic, this time). A scientist at the US Department of Agriculture in Wyndmoor, PA may have an answer to some of our food-borne illness woes.

Tony Jin has created a biodegradable plastic film which has "a natural antimicrobial agent called nisin". Mr Jin claims, and is backed up by testing, that the film kills bacteria that cause Listeria, Salmonella, and E.coli. The film is made from renewable resources like corn residue. It would be used in packaging to wrap meat and line drink containers.

I think this anti-bacterial film wrap sounds promising. I never know quite what to make of this kind of invention. There have been so many innovations that have sounded great in the beginning, but turned into real disasters. If the corn-based plastic wrap really can kill harmful bacteria, and it is implemented, I hope that it is one for the "win" column.

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(IT) SAP Utilities Project Manager

Rate: Excellent Package + Flexible Benefits   Location: United Kingdom + Some Travel   

SAP Utilities Project Manager required by our client a global pioneering IT consulting pace-setter. With an ever expanding SAP Utilities Solutions team, this company is looking for strong SAP Project Managers and consultants to work on the best and most challenging IT projects in the UK. Solid Project Management and/or Architect skills are essential as well as strong customer-facing skills. Experience in SAP IS-Utilities Solutions at consultant level and general sector experience at Project/Programme Management level are required. As a consultant, you will be able to work through an SAP Project encompassing The Scope, shape and delivery of Utility solutions to clients against defined client value propositions in both straightforward and complex environments. Leading a team and taking accountability for the design and delivery of an entire work stream or project. This client offers unrivalled training and career/financial development opportunities to the best candidates in the SAP marketplace. Apply Now!.

Rate:Excellent Package + Flexible BenefitsType:PermanentLocation:United Kingdom + Some TravelCountry:UKContact:Sap DivisionAdvertiser:Spheria RecruitmentEmail:Sap.Division.1ACA7.70901@mail.jobserve.comStart Date:Immediate/ASAPReference:JSNCSPISU-PM

Comment on Ticketmaster sucks by Feed up with TM

For those TM employees that try to discredit those that are fed up with this BULL#&!@. Facts….

1-TM is a monopoly since it is the only first sell ticket distributor for almost all major concert and sporting events period. All the other outlets are simply sites for the scalpers to resell their tickets such as stub hub ticketnow etc.

2-Most venues box office will still charge the processing and service fees because they are going through the very TM system you would if you were home. Job security for TM.

3-You will almost never be able to get the premier seats because of the corruption that this company has with the secondary resellers…that is my opinion but Last years debacle with the World series tickets showed the hold these scum have on the concert and sports goers and we continue to throw our money at them. Have Aerosmith not be able to sell out and then shit will change.

Boycott TM by only going to venues that are GA. That is the only way to see concerts without paying them. Support local bands and make the big names lose money and make it change.

Hidden Street Maple Story

Hidden Street - The Database Takes FlightAre you the Game Masters (GMs) of MapleStory?” No, we are not the GMs of Maple Story. Hidden Street is not affiliated nor an associate with Wizet, Nexon or AsiaSoft.

Religion Calendar: 04/05/2008 (Traverse City Record-Eagle)Religion Calendar is published weekly by the Traverse City Record-Eagle. Information may be mailed to Record-Eagle, P.O. Box 632, Traverse City, MI 49685; fax to 946-8632; e-mail sbeach@record-eagle.com . Items should be sent at least two weeks in advance.

Easter weekend hoppenings (Journal Inquirer)The annual Downtown Manchester Special Services Districts spring celebration will be held in downtown Manchester on Saturday, March 22, from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. Free activities take place throughout the downtown area. A new feature this year is old-fashioned trolley rides along Main Street.

Pasta with cauliflower and toasted breadcrumbs

Filed under: Dinner, Recipes, On the Blogs, Roasting, Comfort Food

You probably won't win any nutrition awards for this meal (its painfully whitish-tan color reminds us that there aren't many rich nutrients hidden in the dish), but no matter - it's still a delicious dinner choice for meat eaters and veggies alike.

The recipe does call for anchovy filets, so simply omit those if you're a vegetarian (unfortunately, though, anchovies are known to produce a certain je ne se quoi in foods that is hard to reproduce). But there's nothing wrong with a simple pasta and cauliflower dish, too.

One of the keys to this recipe is the roasted cauliflower - you cook them until they're just browned, which is sure to bring out their best flavor. And don't forget the parmesan cheese at the end for an added salty kick.

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Quick & Easy Indian Cooking, Cookbook of the Day

Filed under: Books, Cookbook of the Day

Before I spent a year living with an Indian roommate, I had always though of Indian food as something you only ate in a restaurant. I was intimidated by the spices, the toasting and grinding, and the general foreignness of it. However living with Madhu for 11 months made me far more comfortable with Indian food, and when he moved out, I decided that I needed to get an Indian cookbook to continue my education.

Standing in the aisles of the bookstore, I settled on this volume, Quick & Easy Indian Cooking, by the first lady of Indian cookbooks, Madhur Jaffrey. I've found this book to be totally accessible and written in a voice that invites you to continue reading, even after you've studied the recipe you're planning for that moment. Everything I've made has turned out well and has been so delicious that I was momentarily stunned that I had produced it in my own kitchen. If you want to explore Indian cooking, this book is a great starting place.

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Butternut reduction like you've never seen it before

Filed under: Vegetables, Television/Film, On the Blogs

I am going to have "butternut reduction" stuck in my head all day. I don't want to be singing alone, so I had to share this video with all of you. It's called "Akon Calls T-Pain" and it's brought to you by Super Deluxe.

Anyone want some lime on a steak soaked in wine?

[via Gut Check]

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Where Microsoft and Yahoo! Can Beat Google (pfblogs.org)

With the acquisition of Yahoo by Microsoft looking ever more likely, it's time for the future combined entity (yes, that's right - MicroHoo) to face reality. If the purpose of the merger is to beat Google at search, then it will fail. Google has won the search wars - get over it. Google is now the web's default home page and every potential competitor needs to accept this and figure out how to co-exist. Does this mean MicroHoo is doomed to failure? No - not if they focus their resources in the right areas. If MicroHoo lets Google own search, it opens up the rest of the web to compete in and dominate. Here are the three most important steps MicroHoo needs to take: Stop producing content. As CNET has learned, producing content is expensive and the margins are horrible. Google does not have writers, editors and producers on staff. Google seeks to organize the web's content, not produce it. Both Microsoft and Yahoo have lots of people generating content and as long as resources are going into this area, MicroHoo's margins will never get close to Google's. Instead of producing the content internally, focus on becoming the platform on which users generate their own content. Both Microsoft and Yahoo have jumped on the user generated content bandwagon to a ...

Mea Culpa, But the Fed's Still Unsure About Equities (pfblogs.org)

Macro Man submits: We all make mistakes. One of the benefits of blogging is that when you make one, you tend to have it pointed out to you. A couple of days ago, Macro Man ran a chart purporting to show the close relationship between the Fed custody holdings for foreign central banks and the trajectory of the S&P 500. The chart generated a fair amount of commenting in the comments section of the post, in Macro Man's email box, and elsewhere in the blogosphere. The substance of this comment was "that's not right." So Macro Man went back and checked...and it turns out it wasn't right. Mea culpa. [Editor's Note: this post has been corrected here.] One of the problems with following so many self-calculated indicators is that you sometimes forget which is which. Thursday's chart showed total central bank Agency and Treasury holdings at the Fed, both for the Fed's own account and on behalf of foreign central banks. Obviously, the alphabet soup of measures taken by the Federal Reserve has reduced its holding of Treasuries on its balance sheet, thereby exerting a negative influence on the indicator in the published chart.Complete Story » ...

Homebuilders Emerge From the Penalty Box (pfblogs.org)

Daniel Andres Jacome submits: Amid increasing cancellations, declining land balances, and shrinking cancellations, something funny is going on among the nation's homebuilders: their stocks are going up! We view these stocks as "canaries in the coal mine" and just as they first signaled how bad things were going to get last summer, they may be telegraphing an improvement in the broad market. Many homebuilders have "V bottomed" and unless it is a cosmetic relief rally induced by gleeful short covering, the recent sponsorship behind these stocks is impressive. Fist, a word on the major index: Although the Dow is still well under the 200 moving day average, the MACD reading shows the first climb above zero since right before the Dow topped north of 14,000 in the early Fall. We attribute the latest relief rally to the fact that people simply "feel better" about stocks right now and shorts are winding positions, even as headline after headline continues to evade negativity. A 5.1% unemployment rate, a legion of write offs among financials, and sordid home sale data is not enough to wreak havoc across the tape, apparently. Complete Story » ...

Open Question: Money--where did the Obama's US$1.65million in cash come from?

Senator Obama has had an inspiring rise to national prominence. However, this rise is dogged by a lack of crucial information, especially as related to the Senator and Mrs. Obama's finances. In a May 2004 profile in The New Yorker magazine, Senator Obama is quoted to say that in order for the Obama family to be able to survive financially during his 2004 run for the US Senate seat representing Illinois, he and Mrs. Obama had had to take out a second mortgage on their Hyde Park apartment. The Hyde Park area of Chicago might be described as Bohemian rather than well off or even upper middle class. The Senator is duly elected and in January 2005 takes his seat in the US Senate. In June 2005, the Obamas purchase for cash the home in which they now reside when in Chicago. This home cost US$1.65million. It was paid for in cash. This is a remarkable financial turn around from May 2004 when the Obamas needed a 2nd mortgage on an apartment worth at best US$300,000. There seems to be no explanation for how Senator and Mrs. Obama got the US$1.65million in cash to purchase their home. There is no increase in salary, no gifts, no inheritances, no book deals or additional royalties cited in the released financial records which could account for this inflow of funds which amounts to 8 times the couple's pretax declared income of 2004 and 10 times the salary paid to a US Senator (S162,5000 pa), which the Senator had only earned for 6 months prior to the acquisition of the new home. The Senator and Mrs. Obama have not addressed the issue of where the money came from which enabled them to purchase the lovely mansion in the best part of Chicago.

Coalition of 90 Euro-parliamentarians block record industry's 3-strikes/no-broadband proposal

Danny sez, "Last year, Euro Boing Boing readers wrote and called their MEPs to complain about European Union proposals advocating Internet filtering and blocking on behalf of the music industry. Not only were the amendments voted down, but now ninety MEPs from across the political spectrum have tabled a new text which condemns IFPI's plans to exile from the Net anyone they accuse three times of file-sharing:"

Calls on the Commission and the Member States to recognise that the Internet is a vast platform for cultural expression, access to knowledge, and democratic participation in European creativity, bringing generations together through the information society; calls on the Commission and the Member States, therefore, to avoid adopting measures conflicting with civil liberties and human rights and with the principles of proportionality, effectiveness and dissuasiveness, such as the interruption of Internet access.

(Translations into other EU languages here.)

"Among the advocates of the new language is Michel Rochard, the former Prime Minister of France. That's significant because present French PM Sarkozy is the only Euro leader currently seriously considering implementing IFPI's three strikes plan. With this kind of opposition, it looks like France might remain an anomaly, if it doesn't abandon the plans entirely."

Link (Thanks, Danny!)

Lush visualizations of ON THE ROAD's language

Stephanie sez, "NotCot has a post up about Stephanie Posavec's (not me) incredibly detailed graphic artwork in which she exhaustively analyzes the language and thematic structure of Jack Kerouac's On The Road, rendering the data into amazingly beautiful Tufteian info-graphics that are as elegant as they are data-rich. In 'Literary Organism' the entire beat classic is represented as an array of flowers, with petals and blossoms accurately reflecting the word and paragraph count of each chapter. Colors are assigned based on the subject of each section, like cyan for 'Dean Moriarty,' & tan for 'Parties, drinking, & drugs' It's breathtaking." Link to Posavec at the Sheffield Galleries and Museums Trust, Link to Notcot

See also:
Jack Kerouac's hand-drawn cover for On the Road
Joyce Johnson: Jack Kerouac and the 50th anniversary of On The Road
Unedited On The Road to be published
Coppola adapting On the Road
Steve Allen interviews Jack Kerouac
Kerouac curator invents copyright laws to keep photographers away