Who does not love pie, especially when presented in accurate chart format as seen on LaughingSquid?
Category Archives: Food
Butcher
From the Australian slang dictionary:
Butcher : small glass of beer in South Australia – From the theory that a butcher could take a quick break from his job, have a drink and be back at work
I was unable to find a quantity of drink called “hacker”. Beer and computers don’t mix? Perhaps “Give me a hacker” doesn’t have the right ring.
Speaking of safety, this word reminds me of the old joke about the butcher that backed into his meat grinder…got a little behind in his work.
Stopping Desertification
Magnus Larsson gave a cool (pun intended) presentation at TEDGlobal 2009 called “Cities past and future” where he suggested an innovative way to stop desertification. You can see him in action here and here.
First, let me just clarify that I am all in favor of desserts and this in no way clouds my ability to comment on the urgent need to stop deserts from spreading. Ahem.
The idea is to support the green-belt concept, a barrier of trees and vegetation, with a giant wall made of sand.
The sand can be fused together using methods pioneered by anti-earthquake engineering and seismic research in California that is essentially a form of “bacterial concrete”. Bacteria (Bacillus pasteurii – microorganisms that create sandstone by precipitating calcite) can be used at low expense to generate a giant wall from sand. This not only protects the trees and provides a more significant barrier to wind and heat, but also should remain even as the trees may succumb to local demand for firewood or construction materials. In fact, this method coupled with solar innovations and enforcement penalties may make trees no longer desirable for construction or heat, so you get an overall risk reduction in several areas.
Some say this is poetry…
Larsson espouses “aggregation as a design strategy”:
in one way, all design is aggregation. even the most austere minimalistic design usually produces an aggregation of elements that weren’t there before. on one level, it is hard to do anything in the world without adding something to it: a trace, a movement; something.
sand is the very epitome of aggregation. a single grain of sand is almost nothing: a splinter of rock, something that once was something, but has now become a memory of that thing. but put myriad grains together and you get entire landscapes, deserts, the earth. you get fascinating forms and emergent patterns. you get possibilities, potentials, a fluid material from which to build our structures. and you get a force to do it for you: as the sand is carried by the wind, “all” we have to do is make sure we design with this in mind. work with the aggregation, not against it. allow the aeolian forces to put the sand in motion, allow saltation to do its thing, and then, when the sand has aggregated into a shape that we like, use an intelligent strategy for how to solidify it, petrify it, freeze it into a solid state that speaks of that one moment in time.
To me, of course, that is poetry.
Self-healing concrete is another interesting application.
Death by Strawberry
A US state is facing the decision whether to allow a dangerous pesticide into strawberry production. Gourmet.com calls this Politics of the Plate: Toxic Strawberries?
California strawberry farms could soon become toxic sites, if governor Arnold Schwarzenegger succumbs to industry pressure to bypass scientific review by the state’s Department of Pesticide Regulation and allows growers to apply methyl iodide, a potent fumigant that kills every living organism in the soil. He is expected to make a decision in the next two weeks.
I find it strange to see this decision even raised for consideration, given the kind of criticism and documented harm that comes with methyl iodide. The EPA received a letter in 2007 from fifty-four concerned scientists and doctors including five Nobel Laureates, which gave a stark warning.
We are writing to urgently request your assistance in preventing the registration of methyl iodide for use as a soil fumigant. As chemists and physicians familiar with the effects of this chemical, we are concerned that pregnant women and the fetus, children, the elderly, farm workers, and other people living near application sites would be at serious risk if methyl iodide is permitted for use in agriculture (80-275 pounds per acre).
The same letter suggests there is real danger from using a flawed model for toxicity tests.
…U.S. EPA has actually decreased the size of the safety factors that typically add some level of protection from exposures to pesticides.
The EPA did not forestall approval or alter their testing model. Instead they rushed to register “Midas” products. California has already classified methyl bromide as a carcinogen, but New York state has completely refused to register the pesticide. Will California follow?
The bottom line is that as the US debates health care reform, they really should also consider eliminating threats such as poison gas that will drift from agriculture sites into neighborhoods, neighboring fields with workers, and settle into groundwater.