Saturday, June 14, 2014

eggstatic



When I was a kid my Mom would pickle beets. 

Hardboiled eggs are a fun addition because the cross section is beet-red around the outside of the white and yellow center.

simplyrecipes.com

Do you remember those panela pickles? They were superb!



So I got inspired to try eggs this time. 
Hens eggs. And quail eggs.


With red aleppo pepper, named after the Syrian city along the old Silk Road.


Hardboil your eggs, of course, and shell them. The little quail eggs need only about 4 and one half minutes.



The insides were Tiffany blue! Who knew? 
Beautiful!


You can read about Tiffany’s color here:


For the brine I started with 8 dry ingredients. 
Clockwise from 12 noon:


2 tablespoons of Yellow mustard seed, and one of ground coriander.
Five whole star anise. Make sure one winds up in each jar.
Four whole bay leaves.
2 tablespoons of black mustard seed.
1 tablespoon of Kosher salt.
1 tablespoon of fennel seeds.
And in the center, one cup of packed brown sugar.


Add four cups of cider vinegar and two cups of white vinegar, then thin it with one cup of cold water.


Put the brine on to a slow simmer.


Into each jar I packed some shaved shallot, fennel fronds and a healthy pinch of the aleppo pepper.


All 15 of the quail eggs fit into the same size jar as just four of the hens eggs!


Just fill with the heated brine and put them into the fridge.


And wait. 
If you can.

Friday, June 13, 2014

c u 2morrow


looking forward, looking back


Little Durham, New Hampshire, home to just 15,000 people, has a big problem.

Last Thursday a police officer opened what appeared to be an email attachment and within hours, the department computer network tanked.

sclerotic.com

They were infected with ransomware called CRYPTOWALL, a new exploit overtaking the internet.


It works like this: You open a mailcious attachment and within minutes your entire harddrive is encrypted.

bestvpn.com

The hackers demand $300 to send the unencryption key or you lose every bit of your data; every email, every picture, every file on your drive.


They give you just 72 hours to send the cash.

Or you never see what’s on your computer, ever again.

choosehopetoday.com

Nice, huh?

"Make no mistake, the Town of Durham will be paying no ransom," Town Manager Todd Selig was quoted by CBS Boston News.

Symantic researchers were able to infiltrate one such hacker syndicate and discovered they were “earning” five million USD a year on this extortion. 


People are paying to save their irreplaceable pictures and work data.
So what do you think?

A free and unmonitored internet?

billboard
Or one surveilled as heavily as the south Bronx, 
so it is safer for us all?

Online hackers are making this very clear.

digitalbridge.com

We can’t really have it both ways.

zengardner.com

Have a great weekend!

no standing anytime





Thursday, June 12, 2014

color me uber


reuters
What do striking London cab drivers and Barbra Streisand
 have in common?

wiki

The “Streisand Effect.”


Back in 2003, Barbra sued a photographer for $50million to suppress images of her Malibu home posted on a coastal erosion website. 

guardian

Until her lawsuit the photos had only been viewed 6 times, and two of those were by her own attorney.

getty

But news of the lawsuit actually led to 420,000 views in the next month, and the “Streisand effect” was born.

telegraph

European cab drivers struck yesterday to try to keep 
Uber out of their markets.

Instead, the publicity caused by the strike 
was called “PR gold” for Uber.


The internet continues to disarm protected gatekeepers because people will have whatever they want.


Poor London Mayor Boris Johnson issued a statement from the dark ages:


The old guard is getting the future very wrong.

Color me not surprised.

Wednesday, June 11, 2014

reFresh Direct





Tuesday, June 10, 2014

a league of our own



Not many years ago a wealthy family or a well-connected parent was essential to earn the name “Harvard, Yale or Princeton” for your resumé. 

Not anymore.

The playing field is being leveled. 

Anyone with an internet connection can study the best school courses for free, putting all those subway riding hours to good use.


But look around next time you’re on the subway.


Games. Games are everywhere.


Hundreds of thousands of valuable hours in pursuit of angry birds.


Now the Economist has done a study and calculated what Gangnam Style has cost in human productivity. 

Psy’s been watched 2 billion times.


That’s 140 million people hours.


Or enough effort to build the Empire State Building.

Twenty times.


The next time you are in the job market and think you’ve never had a fair chance, look again at your resumé.


Can you sing along with Gangnam but still have no ivy league credentials?
No worries!


Maybe HR will be impressed that you can kick-ass at Tetris.