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Download and print Thingiverse user jerid's pre-bent iPhone 6 Plus Case!

Michelin Madness begins.

Heartfelt congrats @perseny for retaining 3 Michelin stars #MichelinNYC10; 10 yrs of consistency coupled with execution and evolution

— Thomas Keller (@Chef_Keller) September 30, 2014

Michelin Madness is now underway, people: Thomas Keller is the first chef to tweet his star rating for the 2015 Michelin Guide.  Expect more tweets from other Michelin star-rated chefs in the next few hours, with the full announcement hitting the web around 3/3:30 p.m.

Could it be that Ms. Michelin is starting with the three star honorees and working her way down the list? Brace.

The FCC today unanimously voted to end its sports blackout rules nearly four decades after they were first implemented in 1975. Despite stiff objections from the NFL, the Commission has put an end to the rules that barred cable and satellite providers from airing games blacked out on local broadcast stations because they failed to sell out. But it only ends the government's rules. The NFL still has its own, private blackout rules in place with broadcasters like FOX and CBS, and those may still prevent fans from watching local games when tickets remain at the box office.

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The extended trailer for Taken 3 — henceforth, Tak3n — is here. It literally does not matter what I write here, so here are the best Liam Neeson quotes from the trailer."Listen carefully, Kim. Something terrible has happened to your mom. Don't trust anyone"

"There are things I have done in my life and I was always ready to face the consequences. To protect my family."

"My first priority is to protect the only one I have left... I'm going to finish this."

"Good luck."

Reactions from the staff:

• "The Porsche drifting under the jet and taking out the landing gear is everything to me." — Chris Ziegler, noted expert on cars, planes, and Fast & Furious
• Liam Neeson's been hotter... nothing especially science-y going on except that...

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The commission laid out its preliminary case over Apple’s taxes in Ireland, and it told the country it may order it to collect huge amounts of back taxes.

Some central tenets of good health: more vegetables, less soda, lots of exercise. And let’s not forget water: at least eight glasses a day. Much ink is spilled over the first three of these recommendations, but the last sometimes seems to be taken for granted by all the people lugging around Nalgene bottles. Is drinking so much water necessary? Is reaching eight glasses per day crucial to good health?

The short answer — at least to the specific question of eight glasses versus, say, seven or nine — is no, there is nothing special about eight. This threshold appears to be a long-standing medical myth. It’s not even clear where it started. The best answer I can find (based on this review) is that the source was a 1945 publication by the National Food and Nutrition Board, a government advisory agency, that stated this: “A suitable allowance of water for adults is 2.5 liters daily in most instances. … Most of this quantity is contained in prepared foods.” The theory is that people read this, ignored the last sentence, and the eight glasses a day (about 2.5 liters) recommendation was born.

So let’s dispense immediately with glass-counting attempts to reach this magical threshold. If we take a more charitable view of the goals of the water lobby, however, its goal is not to get us to some specific cutoff but to increase water consumption in general. So really the question shouldn’t be so much about eight glasses versus seven, but whether there is evidence that drinking more water makes you healthier.

There is one clear benefit of water: It is calorie-free. Given the magnitude of the obesity epidemic in the United States, it would be a huge public health boon if everyone replaced their fruit juice or soda with water.

But the eight-glasses claim is not about weight, it’s about flushing toxins, avoiding dehydration, and improving various bodily functions. And when researchers study these things, they typically do not focus on water alone but on total consumption of fluid. When the Mayo Clinic gives recommendations for fluid intake, it specifically notes that these are about all beverages, not just water.

So while it’s safe to say that you are a lot better off with a bottle of water than a can of soda, the question then becomes whether it’s better to drink more fluids or not. And here, the evidence conflicts.

Many papers show no effect of fluid intake on mortality. One very large study was run in the Netherlands in the 1980s, and published in the British Journal of Nutrition in 2010. Researchers followed over 120,000 individuals for a period of 10 years, and studied the relationships between fluid intake levels and mortality from heart attack and stroke. The authors found no link between total fluid intake or water intake and either cause of mortality.

Other studies echo this. This one found no impact of fluid intake (although, oddly, the authors exclude water) on chronic kidney disease or cardiovascular mortality. And this one, which randomized people into two groups — more and less water intake — and recorded outcomes like blood sodium levels, found no effect. And lest you think the reason to drink water is to improve your outer beauty, this study found no impacts of hydration on skin quality. (These studies all focus on healthy people. For individuals with particular medical conditions — kidney stones, for example — there are likely larger benefits of hydration.)

But some studies do find effects. Most notable is a study of 20,000 Seventh-Day Adventists, who were followed for six years to look for impact of fluid intake on mortality. The researchers found that drinking more water lowered the risk of dying. For women, the risk was lowered by having three or more cups per day, versus fewer than three. For men, three to four cups was much better than fewer than three, and five or more cups was a bit better than that. And at least one study has found that more than six cups of water a day lowers bladder cancer risk relative to less than one cup.

It’s important to note that other than the study on blood sodium, none of these studies were randomized trials. It’s therefore entirely possible that the effects were driven by other differences between water-drinkers and non-water-drinkers, and are not really due to the water at all.

And here is the other thing: Even in the studies that found effects, the threshold was significantly below eight glasses. Based only on the Seventh-Day Adventist study, we would conclude that women should be having at least three cups a day for maximum effect, and men at least five. Nothing here would suggest that eight glasses are necessary.

About now, you may be wondering: If there’s any evidence at all — even possibly flawed evidence — that more water is better, isn’t that reason enough to stick with the Nalgene, given that there doesn’t seem to be any downside to hydration? The answer is probably yes. But it is worth noting that there is such a thing as too much water. It’s possible to die from water intoxication — and people have — although it’s very rare and drinking eight glasses a day (or 10, or 12) isn’t going to do it.

What you can take from the evidence is that obsessing about reaching some water goal every day is unproductive. Most of us are going to get in three to four cups without doing anything out of the ordinary, and that’s likely to deliver nearly all of the benefits of water intake (if there are any). Probably the best advice is some I got from a doctor colleague recently: “When my patients ask when is a good time to drink water, I tell them: ‘When you are thirsty.’”

For those us without kids, these Disney-themed USB chargers seem like an adorable way to replace the adapters that came with our smartphones. But to anyone with a toddler roaming the house, exploring every last nook and cranny, they also serve as an engraved invitation to start playing with power outlets.

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A sneak peek at Ramen Lab, which is almost ready to unleash ramen flights and noodle seminars on Manhattan.

He's an early peek at the tiny space at 70 Kenmare Street, soon to be home to Ramen Lab, a ramen counter/education center from the expert noodle makers behind Sun Noodle. The New Jersey-based company, which manufactures the noodles used by many of the nation's ramen greats, has been offering seminars and "ramen flights" at its Teterboro factory for a couple years now, but this will be its first space devoted exclusively to eating and learning about ramen, and its first venture in New York City.

The space is still about a month away from actually being able to serve ramen, but when it does, it will be open to the public from noon the 10 p.m. on Tuesdays through Saturdays, serving a simple menu of torigara shoyu ramen, vegetarian miso ramen, tsukemen, mazemen, and gyoza. The rest of the time will be devoted to hosting meetings with other New York ramen shops, as well as seminars and the like. Eventually, the team tells Eater, expect reservation-only tasting flights on Friday nights, and guest appearances from Japanese ramen shops.

Sadly, the Starbucks in the Forbidden City closed down in 2007.

"There's probably a Starbucks coffeehouse near you," the coffee chain's online store locator says, which turns out to be truer than you may imagine. As part of its generalized world-domination schematic, the green mermaid has infiltrated some of the most remote, highly patrolled, and otherwise deepest corners of society. For a long time, perhaps the oddest Starbucks on Earth could be found within the Forbidden City in Beijing, but that one closed down in 2007. Several more unusual and far-flung coffee counters have opened all over the world since then; here are a few of them.

At CIA headquarters: As America just learned over the weekend, the CIA has its own super-secret in-house Starbucks. The lines for lattes are apparently long enough to have bristled a top official, and of course, baristas can't jot their customers' names on cups. "It just didn’t work for this location," says a supervisor at the site, reportedly one of the busiest Starbucks locations in the world.

At Disneyland: Last year, the mermaid appeared on Main Street, U.S.A., causing some chatter about whether this was the kiss of death for the Happiest Place on Earth's "feeling of hometown charm." It turns out that parents' desire to get Pumpkin Spice Lattes outweighs any of those concerns.

On a train through the Swiss Alps: Starbucks's foray into moving-train stores clanked away last November on the Swiss national railway. The café is "one of the smallest" ever designed, but your confusion would be forgiven; Starbucks logos run from locomotive to caboose. It even picked the color theme inside — "the shades and tints associated with coffee" is one way of putting it. "Lots of brown" would be another.

Aboard the USS Boxer and USS Harry S. Truman: Referred to as "Starboxer" and staffed entirely by sailors, the Navy warship's "fully functioning" café gives crew members "one more thing they won't miss" back home. Before it opened early last year, Starbucks whipped baristas into proper frap-blending and milk-frothing shape, but café profits fatten up the ship's Morale, Welfare, and Recreation fund. There's also one on the USS Carl Vinson.

Inside Forever 21's corporate headquarters: Decaf's probably best for the teenage crowd annihilating store racks, but employees in the L.A. corporate office have an unnecessary in-house 'Bucks, complete with the full line of drinks, pastries, and even merchandise.

In a still-operational funeral home: Robinson Funeral Home in South Carolina has doubled as a proud purveyor of Pike and Wi-Fi since 2012, and the owner says it's not just for those grieving. Anyone looking for quiet spot to sip a mocha can enter through the side patio.

At the Tower of London: Visitors too Beefeater'd out can skip the Tower's own offerings "inspired by 1,000 years of great British food" and grab a venti cup of American capitalism instead.

In the Louvre: "The perfect place for a hot drink and a snack while browsing a selection of books published by the Louvre"? It may be necessary, especially if you plan to plow through several wings at the museum.

In the middle of a cruise ship: Royal Caribbean created the world's "first Starbucks at sea" in 2010 when it rolled out its new Allure of the Seas, the world's largest cruise ship.

At the top of a ski slope: An après-ski hot coffee is hardly unusual, but California's Squaw Valley has a café with "an array of hot and cold drinks" that takes ski-up window orders without unstrapping. There are even tables set up in the snow.

At Guantánamo Bay: The Department of Defense helped set up this café, Wi-Fi enabled, "just a stone's throw away" from the detainee camps. It's proven controversial, and Starbucks's official position is that it doesn't take a position on Gitmo's legality, though national-security journalists have noted the policy of trading its coffee for detainee intel often had "the same — and probably better — effect" as torture. This place isn't an official Starbucks; the coffee is just poured there. It also is "a family favorite for splits and sundaes."

[Washington Post]

Read more posts by Clint Rainey

Filed Under: starbucks, the chain gang; @digital-regular

Citing a "rapidly changing global commerce and payments landscape," eBay has just announced plans to separate its business into two distinct and independent companies: eBay and PayPal. Spinning off PayPal is seen as a way to refocus both companies on the "enormous opportunities" before them and to ensure that they move to grasp them as quickly as possible. Current eBay Marketplaces chief Devin Wenig will become the new eBay Inc. CEO when the restructuring is completed in the latter half of next year, while American Express executive Dan Schulman has been recruited to helm the new PayPal. He joins today as president and CEO-designee.

The separation of eBay, whose focus is facilitating online commerce, and PayPal, who wants to be seen as...

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This is not a drill.

According to The Wall Street Journal, Threshold Entertainment — whose major credits include 1995's live action Mortal Kombat film and the sequel Mortal Kombat: Annihilation — is teaming up with the Tetris Company to create a live action movie based on Tetris, the game, to premiere in live action theaters. This is Threshold CEO Larry Kasanoff (emphasis ours):

"It's a very big, epic sci-fi movie... This isn't a movie with a bunch of lines running around the page. We're not giving feet to the geometric shapes."

"Brands are the new stars of Hollywood. We have a story behind ‘Tetris' which makes it a much more imaginative thing."

No cast, crew, production date, or release date have been determined. No writer has...

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Bill Rankin of radicalcartography picks his five favorite maps. The historical meanderings of the Mississippi River map from an Army Corps of Engineers report is a favorite of mine too:

Tags: best of   Bill Rankin   lists   maps   Mississippi River

Clever game to help you master the pen tool in design apps. (Via Mike Davidson.)

Battle Chef Brigade is a video game stew that's one part Iron Chef, one part brawler, and one part Hayao Miyazaki. My childhood, basically. It looks glorious, and now I am very hungry.

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The San Francisco-based coffee company, which eschews espresso in favor of a custom drip experience, is opening in Downtown's South Park

Perfect news on National Coffee Day. Brigham Yen reports Philz Coffee's next opening here in Los Angeles: right at the corner of 8th and Hope in South Park, a previously neglected intersection that's really needed something in the way of quality retail. With over 1,700 square feet, this location follows the San Francisco company's debut in Santa Monica. With a rabid following of tech industry types, this location probably won't attract the same clientele that the Westside location draws.

Instead, it'll draw in sports fans, fashion types (with FIDM nearby), and office workers who are willing to venture from the southern part of Financial District. Either way, it's another big move by a company looking to change the coffee game here in L.A.

· All Philz Coffee Coverage [~ELA~]

No, seriously, there isn't room for all that.

The fry-up, with its eggs and bread and beans, is a real gut-buster of the British breakfast already, but a north England café called Bear Grills — get it? — has now created one so intense and gimmicky that owner Mark Winder makes intrepid customers sign a waiver absolving the restaurant of damages "arising from any injury received or incurred" through any attempt to finish it.

It's called the Hibernator for the obvious reason ("if anyone completes it, they'll have to sleep for a year"); it's four times an adult man's suggested daily calorie intake; and here's what's in it, a paragraph unto itself: four fried eggs, eight "rashers" of bacon, eight sausages, four hash browns, a cheese omelette made of four more eggs, four waffles, four pieces of toast, four pieces of fried bread, four pieces of black pudding, two ladlefuls of beans, tomatoes, and mushrooms, french fries, and a hideously overkill 32-ounce milkshake.

There's even a "mini" version for kids. The full one, which goes for £19.95, "weighs the same as the average newborn baby," as the Daily Mail points out, and has been attempted by 20 individuals so far, none of whom completed it. H+Go figure. Winder doesn't expect that will change anytime soon. He says customers "see it come out on the big platter all heaped high and start to cry," which, when you think about it, isn't any way to start the day.

[Daily Mail UK]

Read more posts by Clint Rainey

Filed Under: man vs. food, bear grills cafe, breakfast, england, the hibernator

Product placement in music videos is about to get even more annoying: new sponsors are going to start getting edited into old videos. Universal Music Group, the music giant with artists including Kanye West and Taylor Swift, is going to start using a technology that will allow music videos to be continually updated after their release — for instance, a soda can in a video might read "Pepsi" one week and "Coke" the next. Aside from allowing advertisers to sponsor a video for limited periods of time, the technology will also allow UMG to target different versions of a video to viewers with different interests.

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It's a tricky security problem: how do you let your wedding guests take photos, but make sure none of the photos leak? If you're George Clooney, you collect everyone's phone and give each of them a burner phone just for the occasion, to be tossed away once the big day is over. It's an expensive way around the problem, sure, but if you're a movie star, it's a small price to pay.

The bigger question, tossed around in security circles, is how all this actually worked. Supposedly, Clooney's people had access to all of the photos taken with the burner phones, so they would know who took which photos and would be able to trace back any leaks that came out. Vogue had bought exclusive photography rights to the wedding (donating the fee to...

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Phablets are big and can be hard to use in one hand, but Alcatel thinks it has the solution for this dilemma. Its latest Android phablet, the Pop Mega, a six-inch honker available from Tracfone's prepaid Straight Talk brand next month, actually comes with a secondary, little phone for making calls, sending texts, and getting notifications. The secondary phone is affectionately known as the Buddy and pairs to the Pop Mega via Bluetooth. Alcatel notes that it's easier to use the Buddy when making phone calls, while the Pop Mega is better suited for browsing the web, watching video, and doing all the other things you do with a smartphone.

Alcatel isn't the first company to try this idea — HTC launched the Mini accessory for its big phones...

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Omar J. Gonzalez, who jumped the White House fence this month, made it far deeper into the mansion than previously disclosed, overpowering a Secret Service agent before he was tackled, according to a member of Congress.

There are Squeezy Cheesy Fries under that utility belt.

It may not be the most thematically cohesive bit of fast-food merchandising, but maybe the Batman Double Diner Beef Burger is clearly the stunt hamburger Hong Kong needs now? Blissfully unconnected to either the TV show Gotham or the 2016 movie sequel, the Hong Kong McDonald's burger arrives on the scene immediately following the end of a terrible food-supply scandal. Perhaps the fast-food chain realized the only way to trump Burger King Japan's horrible-looking black cheeseburger was by bringing in the Dark Knight himself. In any case, very few things scream "vigilante justice" louder than Squeezy Cheesy Fries with a Sparkling Green Apple Tea on the side.

Redditor jc1593, who has also been posting reports from the suddenly massive Occupy-style protests in Hong Kong, posted a photoset over the weekend of the Batman meal, which includes fries finished with some squiggly American cheese. The first of the chain's Justice League series meals features a burger with two patties, a McMuffin-style fried egg, some onions, and sauce. It's unclear what's going to be on Superman's or Wonder Woman's burger, but we're guessing Aquaman's is going to involve fish.

Related: Burger King Japan’s Black Burgers Are Even Worse in Real Life
[Reddit]

Read more posts by Hugh Merwin

Filed Under: the chain gang, batman, batman burgers, mcdonald's hong kong, occupy central

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Filed under: Concept Cars, Coupe, Hybrid, Performance, Paris Motor Show, Lamborghini, Design/Style

The first purportedly leaked images from an Italian magazine of Lamborghini's new vehicle for the Paris Motor Show are on the web, and they closely echo the model's silhouette from the teaser. However, there's no official mention of a name to confirm that this is being called the Asterion, as rumored.

The profile image (right) definitely suggests this is the same model that Lamborghini is previewing for Paris. It features the same slightly arcing hood and roof, and it has a rear air intake behind the door. The shape also seems to support the belief that this concept has a 2+2 seating arrangement to echo earlier Lambo models like Espada.

According to Autoblog.nl, which has posted the images, the vehicle may use a hybrid V10 with three electric motors to produce in the neighborhood of 900 horsepower. Furthermore, it claims that this might be just one of two concepts that Lamborghini is bringing to the Paris show. For now it's still a mystery, but all should be revealed on October 2 for the vehicle's unveiling.

Lamborghini Asterion leaked in print ahead of Paris debut originally appeared on Autoblog on Mon, 29 Sep 2014 14:55:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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As the longest-running sitcom on TV, The Simpsons has accumulated a trove of digital content that's record-setting in almost every way: a staggering 552 episodes from 25 seasons. This October, FXX will launch an app that lets fans (with a cable package) stream every episode, on any device—plus give them unprecedented power to browse shows, search for quotes, share clips, and curate playlists.

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Despite all of the pleasures of instant noodles—the salty, MSG-packed broth, the little freeze-dried nubs of vegetables, the slippery, way-too-soft noodles—wouldn't it be great if you could get all of that same convenience and pleasure—the portability, the just-add-water cooking, the lunch-sized portions—but pack it full of fresh vegetables and real, honest-to-goodness flavor? Here's a secret: you can, and it's easier than you think. Read More

Still miso-glazed after all these years.

This year, Nobu's flagship location in Tribeca celebrates its 20th anniversary. It's hard to believe, but there was once a time when every metropolis in the world didn't have a Nobu outpost. It may be equally hard to believe there was also a time when the restaurant's signature black cod with miso hadn't become an international phenomenon. Yet there were signs two decades ago, when the very first Nobu opened at 105 Hudson Street: The soy-slicked fish was a must-order, called out even in the restaurant's earliest reviews. A kind of fame ensued, and today, black cod with miso is essentially shorthand for the Nobu empire itself. But in fact, as chef Nobu Matsuhisa and his famous partners expanded the restaurant portfolio from one to two to a dozen, and now, some thirty-plus Nobus, it happened that miso black cod wasn't simply delicious, it also turned out to be the ideal dish to help launch a global brand.

The idea is simple: Filets of fish are marinated for three days in mirin, sake, white miso, and sugar. They are broiled to order and are given a spare presentation on a '90s-style white square plate on top of a bright-green banana leaf. The plate is decorated with miso dots and an elegant spear of pink-and-white hajikami ginger. In fact, the Tribeca flagship didn't actually introduce the dish; Chef Matsuhisa himself had tinkered with the idea at Matsuhisa in Beverly Hills, and the technique is actually a variation on a centuries-old tradition of curing fish in the dregs left over from sake production. "In traditional Japan, fresh fish would marinate in [sake lees and] miso, to keep it longer," Matsuhisa says. "That's where the idea came from." But even though the dish got its start in Southern California, it was its New York debut that first made waves on a national level.

"Certain dishes are like that famous obelisk in Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey," New York's restaurant critic Adam Platt says. "When it lands in their midst, the apes have never seen anything like it, and they are changed forever. Miso cod was one of those dishes." As it happens, Nobu's glazed fish benefits from two strokes of real genius. The first is that the kitchen crisps each filet to a perfect amber caramel — diners get a dish that's obviously been cooked, a great gateway for customers who were still wary of sushi back in 1994. The other is that the marinade itself is decidedly sweet, thanks to mirin and sugar, which appeals to the notoriously fickle American palate. On top of all that, the fermented aspects of mirin and miso contribute booming, glutamate-rich flavors to the small plate. "The taste," Matsuhisa says, "is a lot of umamis."

The deliciousness of the fish itself is just one reason the dish is such a hit, but the practical innovation, from a chef's standpoint, is that it is dead-simple to make: Black cod, which is another name for sablefish, was very affordable in 1994. Line cooks found that it kept well in its marinade, which minimized spoilage, and broiling is one of the simplest preparations in a busy kitchen — any line cook can finish dozens of orders simply by sliding a sheet pan full of fish under the flame for a few minutes. Additionally, undercooking miso cod isn't easy to do, either: The marinade caramelizes before the fish is fully cooked through, meaning the glaze acts like one of those pop-up turkey timers, signaling to even the most inexperienced cooks that the dish is done. And in the event of overcooking, the black cod's high fat content kept it from drying out. It's very forgiving.

So when you went to Matsuhisa's place in its earlier, trendier days, you ordered the miso black cod. When the Nobu empire expanded from Tribeca to London to Kuala Lumpur and beyond, young cooks found the dish easy to master, and jet-setting customers knew of at least one reliable menu item to order wherever they landed. It was in the vanguard of classy fish. Soon enough, the dish became big on the banquet scene, and versions of miso black cod showed up on all sorts of non-Nobu menus — homages to and knockoffs of the status-symbol dish flourished and became, in a way, advertisements for Nobu. Black cod with miso was effectively the Momofuku pork bun of its day, a highly replicable item bearing the slightest hint of a chef's signature.

Of course, the surge in popularity meant that black cod prices would never stay as low as they were in the mid-90s. "It used to be the really cheap," Matsuhisa says. "Now the price is very high — not only because of me. All over the different restaurants, even the Italian restaurants, the French restaurants, they started using black cod." (Nobu says he uses the same purveyor for all of his black cod.)

The tradeoff for the high price of the fish is brand recognition that transcends international borders, and has made the restaurant chain essentially critic-proof. Last week in Britain, the Michelin Guide stripped Nobu's two London locations of their stars. It hardly seems like that will hurt the brand: Nobu is already at work on a new hotel in London, which will no doubt serve plenty of black cod with miso when it opens.

Additional reporting by Trupti Rami.

Read more posts by Hugh Merwin

Filed Under: empires, glazed over, miso with black cod, nobu, nobu matsuhisa; @digital-regular

An anonymous reader writes Parents in China's Zhejiang province can give their own blood to earn some extra points on their child's high school entrance exam. Four liters of donated blood will get your child one extra point; 6 liters adds two points; and 8 liters, three. From the article: "The policy burst into the national limelight this week, when a Weibo user posted a photo of a bandaged arm, saying, 'For my future child, I say one thing: Relax when you take the high school entrance exam. Your dad's already helped you gain points.' The post was widely shared. Though the user declined to be interviewed by China Real Time, he also clarified his original post, saying that he had in fact been giving blood since age 18."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.