Sunshine De Difference Than Universe

Sony Online Entertainment is working with legendary DC Comics artist Jim Lee to produce DC Universe Online, a massively-multiplayer online game where players can fight alongside or against their favorite superheroes and supervillains including Batmanbatman, Superman, Wonder Woman, The Joker and more.

As with most other titles in the MMO genre, you’ll have your choice of character class and customization along with a unique combination of superpowers. Famous DC writers, including Geoff Johns and Marv Wolfman, have been brought in to help pen the storyline and quest adventures, which take place in familiar locales like Gotham City, Metropolis, Arkham Asylum and more.

DCUO will be subscription and microtransaction-based and will launch in November 2010 on both the PC and PlayStation 3. We got a look at some of the gameplay at E3; check out the video below as well as a screenshot gallery and let us know what you think. If you’re a DC Comics fan, will you be excited to play within the DC Universe?

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Science educators often skim off the top, as it were. They regale young minds with the marvels of science while remaining silent about the problems to which it has contributed.

When I was in grade school as a member of a different younger generation, we had routine drills in which we took cover under our desks. This was to prepare us to act quickly in case the Russians decided to nuke our playground. No one ever explained how this pathetic maneuver would save us, but it seemed to make the teachers feel better. Today's youngsters are treated to a different menu of menaces. Their nuclear hazard is more likely to come in the form of a dirty nuclear device detonated by a terrorist instead of from a Russian plane or missile. Then there is global warming, nuclear waste, environmental degradation, polluted air, water and soil. There are acidified oceans, melting polar ice, oceanic dead zones, dying coral reefs, vanishing species, on and on, all of which are due in some measure to the downside of science and technology. The mantra that only science can save us from these perils rings hollow to many youngsters, since it was largely science and technology that bequeathed them in the first place. As anthropologist and educator Loren Eiseley put it,

We have lived to see the technological progress that was hailed in one age as the savior of man become the horror of the next. We have observed that the same able and energetic minds which built lights, steamships and telephones turn with equal facility to the creation of what euphemistically is termed the “ultimate weapon.” It is in this reversal that the modern age comes off so badly.

The usual defense from the science community toward views such as Eiseley's is that it is technology, not science itself, that has made a mess of things. This is no doubt true to a certain extent. But scientists sometimes take risks in their research that appear breathtakingly irresponsible and reckless, which they usually justify in the name of pure or basic science. Some of these risks are so obvious they draw fire from scientists themselves. Consider a recent editorial in the respected British publication New Scientist titled “The Scary Business of Tinkering with Life”:

“By tinkering with the cell's natural machinery …[the research team] has found a way of making proteins with entirely new properties, opening up a future of exotic designer organisms…. This is a fundamental advance that could lead to new drugs, materials and energy sources. But tampering with life's operating system will inevitably raise safety concerns — and it's true that we have no way of predicting the fallout of this work. Synthetic biologists need to confront openly and honestly public fears that they are “playing God [emphasis added].”

Science boosters should wake up. Kids aren't dumb. To borrow novelist Ernest Hemingway's term, they have excellent “built-in bullshit detectors.” And nothing triggers the warning more than when those in charge present only one side of a story.

Must Science Be Depressing?

Why would anyone who is psychologically healthy pick a career that demands a view of the world that is morbid, pessimistic and depressing? That's precisely the worldview advocated by some of the most outstanding scientists of our day. This can be a turnoff to any optimistic, questing, curious, intelligent kid who stumbles onto it. Perhaps that is why the advocates of science education almost never acknowledge this prevailing view when promoting the wonders of science to youngsters.

Typical of the gloomy perspective is that of Nobel physicist Steven Weinberg in his 1977 book The First Three Minutes. In a now-famous passage, he writes,

It is almost irresistible for humans to believe that we have some special relation to the universe, that human life is not just a more-or-less farcical outcome of a chain of accidents reaching back to the first three minutes, but that we were somehow built in from the beginning… It is hard to realize that this all [i.e., life on Earth] is just a tiny part of an overwhelmingly hostile universe. It is even harder to realize that this present universe has evolved from an unspeakably unfamiliar early condition, and faces a future extinction of endless cold or intolerable heat. The more the universe seems comprehensible, the more it also seems pointless.

By the time Weinberg unveiled his gloomy view, the notion of a purposeless, meaningless universe was already on a roll in science. One of the most influential supporters of this perspective was the Nobel molecular biologist Jacques Monod (1910-1976), whose 1972 book Chance and Necessity powerfully influenced a generation of scientists. For Monod, purpose and meaning in nature were outlaw concepts; for a scientist to believe in them was unbecoming at best and a moral failing at worst. As he confidently proclaimed, “The cornerstone of scientific method is the systematic denial that 'true' knowledge can be got at by interpreting phenomena in terms of final causes–that is to say, of 'purpose.'”

Cognitive scientist and philosopher Daniel C. Dennett of Tufts University has joined the chorus of meaninglessness by dissing free will. “When we consider whether free will is an illusion or reality,” he says, “we are looking into an abyss. What seems to confront us is a plunge into nihilism and despair.”
Although prevalent, this depressing verdict on the status of meaning, direction and purpose in the world is not unanimous, and kids who intuitively reject this view have a few strong shoulders to stand on, as we'll see in the next blog.

References

Eiseley L. The Man Who Saw Through Time. New York, NY: Scribner; 1973: 106.
The scary business of tinkering with life. Unsigned editorial. New Scientist. February 20, 2010; 205(2748): 3.

Geddes L. Rewriting life in four-letter words. New Scientist. February 20, 2010; 205(2748): 14.
Hemingway E. Quoted in: Thinkexist.com. http://thinkexist.com/quotation/develop_a_built-in_bullshit_detector/204440.html. Accessed February 17, 2010.

Weinberg S. The First Three Minutes. New York, NY: Basic Books; 1993: 154.

Monod J. Chance and Necessity. New York, NY: Random House; 1972:21.

Dennett DC. Quoted in: “Overbye D. Free will: Now you have it, now you don't.” New York Times online. January 2, 2007.

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@Ickleberry01 yep

the Universe lookin after you

Add comment Tagged: god, moon, sun June 25, 2010

Which are ur favorite lasagne food ?

This attachment is technically a pasta extruder. It works like those old Play-Doh Spaghetti Factory play sets: fresh pasta dough gets put into a hopper and then pressed out through plates. The noodles are cut when they get to the desired length.

The KitchenAid attachment actually comes with six different plates for making six different pasta shapes. You can make regular spaghetti, bucatini (hollow spaghetti), large or small macaroni, fusilli, and rigatoni. It looks like the hopper is made of plastic, but the plates themselves are metal.

This is the first pasta maker or attachment we've seen that lets us make shaped pasta at home. We absolutely love our KitchenAid pasta roller attachment – not to mention KitchenAid in general – so we have high hopes for this attachment. We'll be saving our pennies starting right now!

• Check It Out! Pasta Press KitchenAid Attachment from Williams-Sonoma, $179.95

What do you think about this attachment? Has anyone had a chance to try it?

Related: Weekend Project: Make Pasta!

(Images: Williams-Sonoma)

Q. Dear Umbra,
I am a fairly active, athletic person; that being said, I love my pasta. When I
boil the water for my pasta, I run the tap water for about 5–10 seconds until
the water becomes very hot, then fill up my pot, and set it on my glass-top
stove to boil. The water seems to boil almost instantaneously when I fill it up
with hot water, and when I fill it up from the tap right away with cooler
water, it takes longer. So, my question is: Is it more wasteful to let the
precious water run to get hot for 5–10 seconds, reducing the boiling time? Or
is it more wasteful to fill it up with cooler water, not wasting any water, but
using more electricity to boil the water? One other consideration is that I
live at high altitude, and water takes longer to boil here. Thanks so
much!

Nate W.
Redmond, Ore.

A. Dearest Nate,

Photo: lucadea via FlickrYou know, I actually dropped a few pounds on a pasta diet
once. I just had to walk pasta the refrigerator, pasta the bakery, and pasta
the ice cream shop. A 3-year-old told me that joke.

But you know what's really nothing to laugh at (besides my
pasta joke)? Wasting our precious resources. Cooking noodles is one of those
small things I'm always telling you not to sweat; but conserving water and
energy is a big honking thing to sweat, so I'm happy to fill you in. Plus, it
gives me a chance to play around in the Grist test kitchen.

Since I have some better solutions to come, let's go ahead
and take the letting-water-run-until-it's-hot option off the table right now.
After space heat—that is, heating your entire home—water heaters are the
largest household energy consumers. And there are more efficient means of
heating such a small amount of water that also don't let natural resources just
run down the drain (I don't suppose you had a bucket there each time to catch
excess water?).

So does that just leave us waiting for the recommended six quarts of cooler tap water to
boil on the stovetop before adding our pasta? Not necessarily. First off, you
do not—I repeat, do not—need six
quarts of water to make a bowl of pasta. Yes, I know that's what it says on the
box. Grist's own food guru, Tom Philpott, and
food-science writer Harold McGee both concur that six quarts are overkill. About a quart and a half should do
the trick (I actually used even less for mine).

Secondly, here's the real coup: You can put the pasta right
into the cold water! That's right. You don't need to boil the water first. Pop
your pasta in, put a lid on the pot (contains the heat), and stir as needed to
prevent sticking. This method produced the same delectable rotini for me as the
boil-first method, saving water (ta-ta, six quarts) and energy, and it was
really no extra effort.

I wasn't satisfied to stop there, though, as I wanted to
give you options, plural. I'm not
sure how the cold water method works at high altitude, or if there's any
difference at all, but let's say you decide to stick with the boil-first
method. We know from my previous column
on boiling water for tea that the electric kettle is No. 1 in water-heating
efficiency. Thusly, how about getting your pasta water started in an electric
kettle? Once it's boiling (or nearly boiling) pour it over your pasta in a pot,
and then pop the lid on. Turn the burner on to keep the water's momentum going,
and voila. Cooked pasta in 10 minutes (or however long your particular type of
pasta takes)—which reminds me of yet another energy-saving tip: You don't have
to leave the stove on for the duration of the cooking time. Turn off the burner
a few minutes before the pasta is finished, leaving the lid on. The pasta will
continue to cook in the pot.

And don't just toss that water post-cooking. Pasta water in
restaurants is liquid gold—used as a sauce thickener. While you may not be able
to replicate the starchy water made from boiling order after order of
spaghetti, you can still try mixing some pasta water in with your next batch of
homemade tomato sauce. Or you can just let the water cool to room temperature
and use it to give your houseplants a little hydration.

Saucily,
Umbra

Love is here

Add comment Tagged: love, relationships May 3, 2010

Learn On Topic of Hot

Add comment Tagged: sun, sunshine May 1, 2010

What is ur beloved recipes?

The buns should have bread the writing on the wall: They are nothing but the car for Americans' daily meat-to-mouth resuscitation. Which is why KFC buh-bye to bread in order to shove even more gross industrial chicken Double Down hungry throats. KFC is shooting for a more manly for getting meat to the gullet, opting for the Hummer of the food world: more meat.

The recipe for total organ failure? Two slabs of bacon, along with Monterey Jack and pepper jack cheese, between two fillets of chicken (this is where the buns get the middle finger), all slathered with the Colonel's special sauce. That's 32 grams of grease that KFC's Double Down will get ya. Because the Colonel too chicken to add more chicken.

Psst … for a meaty bonus, scroll down to the bottom of this story for the fictional precursor to the Double Down chicken-on-chicken sandwich. Compliments of 30Rock's Tracy Jordan!

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Blue Ribbon's Excellent Matzo Ball Soup

Posted by Caroline Russock, March 25, 2010 at 2:15 PM

[Photographs: Caroline Russock]

During Jewish holidays when I was growing up, Matzo Ball Soup was always the number one topic of conservation. Coming from a family that wasn't too concerned with food on an each day basis, I found it strange that everyone automatically turned into a critic when the soup was served. First the soup itself was discussed: Too salty? Not flavorful enough? Or perhaps there was a little too much dill?

After dissecting the soup, it was time to speak about the matzo balls. One of my grandmothers made golfball-sized matzo balls that were dense and sunk to the bottom of the bowl, while my other grandmother's were softball sized, so light that they fell apart in your spoon. I enjoyed them both, since choosing between them would be like picking a favorite grandmother.

But it's been a while since had a bowl of grandmother-made matzo ball soup and with Passover coming up I figured it was time that I made a batch of my own. I chose the recipe from Bromberg Bros. Blue Ribbon Cookbook, the eagerly anticipated cookbook from Bruce and Eric Bromberg, the masterminds behind the Blue Ribbon family of restaurants in New York.

Their recipe starts with a flavorful stock made of a whole chicken cooked with plenty of aromatics. Once the chicken is cooked through, it's taken out and the meat is stripped from the bones. The bones are placed back in the stock and cooked for an additional hour. The stock is left to cool overnight so that a layer of chicken fat, or schmaltz, forms on the surface.

The Bromberg Brother's matzo balls contain two secret weapons for ultimate matzo ball deliciousness: schmaltz and seltzer water. The seltzer water lightens the matzo balls and the chicken fat gives them astounding flavor. Since the matzo balls are cooked in water instead of chicken broth they retain a flavor of their own instead of just soaking up the stock.

Is Blue Ribbon's matzo ball soup superior than either of my grandmother's? I'd rather not say. What I will say is that it lived up to the title of “excellent”—the stock was beautifully flavored, and the matzo balls were the ideal weight and density and tasted of chicken fat in the best possibly way.

Blue Ribbon's Excellent Matzo Ball Soup

- serves 6 to 8-

Adapted from Bromberg Bros. Blue Ribbon Cookbook by Bruce Bromberg and Eric Bromberg.

Ingredients

Chicken Broth

1 whole chicken (3 to 4 pounds)
1 tablespoon kosher salt
5 celery stalks with leaves, chopped
3 carrots, peeled and chopped
1 onion, chopped
3 garlic cloves, peeled
4 sprigs of fresh flat-leaf parsley
3 sprigs of fresh dill
1/2 teaspoon black peppercorns
2 dried bay leaves

Matzo Balls

4 massive eggs
1 cup matzo meal
2 tablespoons schmaltz (rendered chicken far reserved from making broth) or duck fat
1 tablespoon kosher salt
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 cup seltzer water
3 carrots, peeled and sliced into 1/4-inch-thick rounds (about 1 cup)
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
1 1/2 tablespoons finely chopped fresh dill

Procedure

1. To make the broth: Rub the chicken with salt inside and out. Let rest on a plate in the refrigerator for 15 minutes. Rinse very well under cold running water and then pat dry with paper towels.

2. Put the chicken in a stockpot and add enough cold water to cover by 3 inches. Bring to a boil, them skim off any foam that rises to the top. Add the celery, carrots, onion, garlic, parsley, dill, peppercorns, and bay leaves, and return the liquid to a boil. Skim again.

3. Reduce the heat and let simmer uncovered until the chicken is cooked, about 45 minutes. Transfer the chicken to a bowl and, when cool enough to handle, take the meat off the bones (reserve the meat for another purpose). Return the bones to the pot and simmer for 1 hour more. Strain through a cheesecloth-lined sieve, discarding the solids. Cool the broth slightly, then refrigerate until cold, overnight or up to 3 days.

4. Using a slotted spoon, skim off the solidified chicken fat from the broth. Save for making matzo balls or another purpose.

5. To make the matzo balls: In a huge bowl, stir together the eggs, matzo meal, schmaltz, salt, and baking powder. Add the seltzer and use a rubber spatula to mix well. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate for 1 hour.

6. Fill a large, wide pot with salted water and bring to a boil. Fill a small bowl with cold water and have nearby to keep your hands clean and wet. Working gently, without pressing, use clean, wet hands to form 1/2-inch-round matzo balls. As they are formed, drop them into the boiling water. When all of the matzo balls are formed, cover the pot with a round of parchment paper to keep them submerged (or partially cover the pot with a lid if you have parchment paper) and simmer very gently (don't let the water boil again) until cooked through and tender, 45 minutes to 1 hour. Remove from the cooking liquid with a slotted spoon, and arrange in a single layer on a rimmed baking sheet. If not using that day, let cool to room temperature, then store the matzo balls in a single layer in an airtight container filled with cooled cooking liquid to cover for up to 2 days.

7. To serve, gently reheat the matzo balls in a pot filled with matzo ball cooking liquid or fresh water to cover (when the water comes to a simmer, taste a matzo ball to see if it's hot enough, and either use immediately or continue to simmer until warmed to taste).

8. In a separate pot, bring the chicken broth to a boil. Add the carrot rounds and simmer until soft, about 7 minutes. Season to taste with salt and pepper, then add the dill.

9. Ladle the broth into individual serving bowls. Use a slotted spoon to transfer the warmed matzo balls into the soup and serve piping hot.

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Add comment Tagged: chicken, cooking, food, recipes April 13, 2010

Read On Topic of photos

Black and white photography attracts you with its detailed attention to composition, lighting, perspective and the context it is shot in rather than the play of beautiful colors common in other forms of photography. This is the main reason of its impenetrable allure

Stephen H Smith participates in the night photography monthly assignment.

Stephen has photographed around the Thames with some successes, 'Chelsea embankment' shows good technical ability, and the framing works well. 'MI6 Building' has lots of pleasant blue and yellow reflections on the water, as well as being a rather interesting building to shoot. The cropping of 'Battersea Bridge' doesn't do the scene justice, as the embankment wall has been abruptly placed in the middle of the foreground and the bridge floats in the middle of the picture. Use the rule of thirds and crop in a little closer, you don't need the path and lamp in this shot. The pictures are quite similar – it would have been good to see some variation of subjects, but this is a good attempt at the assignment, it will be good to see what you come up with for the next one, remember, keep trying until you really feel the set is complete!

Best Of Photojournalism Still Photography & Web Judging Begins Sunday

DURHAM, NC (March 19, 2010) – Judging in the Still Photography and Web categories of NPPA's 2010 Best Of Photojournalism competition will begin Sunday at the contest's host site, The Poynter Institute for Media Studies in St. Petersburg, FL.

This year some 3,000 entrants from 147 countries submitted more than 50,000 still images, video, and Web entries in the 2010 Best of Photojournalism competition.

NPPA's Best Of Photojournalism has remained a free contest with no entry fees since it's beginning.

Winners of each day's categories will be announced daily here on the NPPA Web site. The Sports Photojournalist of the Year will be judged on Tuesday, and the Photojournalists of the Year (Large and Small Markets) and the winner of Cliff Edom's "New America Award" will be announced at the end of the week.

In last year's contest, freelance photojournalist Walter Astrada was the NPPA BOP Photojournalist of the Year (Larger Markets) and James Gregg of the Arizona Daily Star was the Photojournalist of the Year (Smaller Markets), and Carl Kiilsgaard of Western Kentucky University won Cliff Edom's "New America Award." Quinn Rooney of Getty Images AsiaPac was picked as the Sports Photojournalist of the Year.

Best Of Photojournalism judging at Poynter, the contest's host site, has been coordinated by Thomas Kenniff, who is NPPA's director of sales and contests, and NPPA's executive director Jim Straight, along with Poynter's Kenneth Irby and Al Tompkins.

This year's judges for the 2010 Best Of PhotojournalismStill Photography categories are California-based freelance photojournalist Donald Miralle; Sherman Williams, the assistant managing editor for visual journalism at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel; Sandy Ciric, a senior news editor at Getty Images; and Monte Trammer, the recently retired publisher of Gannett Co. Inc., who now lives in Florida.

Judges for the Web categories are Alexandra Garcia, an Emmy-nominated video and multimedia journalist for The Washington Post; Phaedra Singelis, a supervising producer for MSNBC.com; John Kaplan, a Pulitzer Prize-winning photojournalist who now teaches at the University of Florida; Mike Stocker, an award-winning photojournalist for the South Florida Sun-Sentinel; Theresa Collington, the executive producer online for Tampa's WTSP-TV; and Vidisha Priyanka, an editor for Tampa Bay Online.

The Web category judging is being coordinated by Regina McCombs, a Poynter faculty member who teaches multimedia, and Jack Rowland, a senior video producer for the St. Petersburg Times.

In early March during Best Of Photojournalismjudging of the 2010 Television and Editing categories at Poynter, Darren Durlach of WBFF-TV in Baltimore was picked as the Best Of Photojournalism 2010 Ernie Crisp Television News Photographer of the Year, and Shawn Montano was named BOP's TV Video Editor of the Year.

During that same judging KARE-TV of Minneapolis was named Station of the Year (Large Markets), WAVY-TV of Portsmouth, VA, was named Station of the Year (Medium Markets), and KTUU-TV of Anchorage was named Station of the Year (Small Markets).

NPPA's 2010 Best Of Photojournalism competition is sponsored this year by Apple, The Poynter Institute for Media Studies, ibilbio, Camera Bits, Ohio University, and the St. Petersburg Times.

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Add comment Tagged: gallery, photography, photos March 20, 2010

Hey

CheckSee|Look at} few home pictures i love.

Add comment Tagged: home, house, pics March 18, 2010