Rexfeng

When Valve first got its hands on Turtle Rock's Counter-Strike mod, Left 4 Dead, it tried upping the number of players from four to five or six, even after Turtle Rock said it wouldn't turn out well. Valve tried it and it didn't work out, and Left 4 ...

Baltimore resident Daniel Doty was recently booked by a speeding camera for going 38mph in a 25mph zone. Doty might not have fought the ticket, but his car was standing still at the time he received it.

The Baltimore Sun obtained data from a secret audit conducted by the city that revealed that Doty's likely one of thousands issued erroneous speeding tickets by the city's cameras. The audit, which was conducted by consultant group URS Corp, concluded that the error rate was more than 10 percent for the city's speed cameras, costing residents $2.8 million in tickets. One camera URS audited turned out more errors than correct citations.

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While the rest of the Angry Birds spend their days desperately trying to recover their stolen young from their piggy adversaries, one has apparently decided he'd rather skip off to North America to play ice hockey. NHL HockeyBird is a bit of a dick.

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Mark Ames, reporting for Pando Daily:

In early 2005, as demand for Silicon Valley engineers began booming, Apple’s Steve Jobs sealed a secret and illegal pact with Google’s Eric Schmidt to artificially push their workers wages lower by agreeing not to recruit each other’s employees, sharing wage scale information, and punishing violators. On February 27, 2005, Bill Campbell, a member of Apple’s board of directors and senior advisor to Google, emailed Jobs to confirm that Eric Schmidt “got directly involved and firmly stopped all efforts to recruit anyone from Apple.”

Later that year, Schmidt instructed his Sr VP for Business Operation Shona Brown to keep the pact a secret and only share information “verbally, since I don’t want to create a paper trail over which we can be sued later?”

Amazing story.

David Pogue, on Sony’s industry-leading push to fit bigger sensors into smaller cameras:

In short, the single most important statistic about a camera is not the number of megapixels (which actually means very little to picture quality). It’s sensor size.

Worth noting: iPhone cameras use Sony sensors.

See Also: Pogue’s review of the new Sony A7 full-frame camera.

Say goodbye to the peanut butter Cronut and feast your eyes on the brand new beautiful raspberry-lychee February 2014 model, Dominique Ansel's offering come next month. The bakery tells us the pastry is stuffed with both raspberry confiture and lychee ganache and the glaze has freeze-dried raspberry bits mixed with lemon juice and dusted with lemon zest sugar. Sounds perfect for the year's most saccharine love-themed holiday! [ more › ]

Here's a super clever art installation by artist Markus Raetz. As the two paper chandeliers spin, the light source from behind mimics a ghost head turning its head from side to side. The paper is specifically cut to create the illusion of motion from the invisible head.

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Mostly because of jet aircraft, there are very few places in the world free of man-made noise.

For the past 30 years, Hempton has made it his mission to discover what he calls the last great quiet places, areas that clock in at audible human noise-free intervals of 15 minutes or more. He only counts areas of around 3,100 square kilometres (1,200 square miles) or larger -- enough to create a sound buffer around a central point of absolute quiet. Over the years, his list has shrunk as he returns to a previously quiet spot, only to find it now polluted by noise. Still, he says 12 such quiet places exist in the US, with more found around the world. A spot in the Hoh Rainforest in Washington is one, as are places in Grasslands National Park in Canada, Boundary Waters Canoe Area in Minnesota and Haleakala National Park in Hawaii. The others, however, he keeps confidential.

(via @bobulate)

Tags: audio

You haven't made Valentine's Day plans yet. That's okay! Who needs 'em? Manufactured holiday, singlehood empowerment, overpriced prix fixe menus. But if you must make a romantic gesture next month, let it be this card. It sums up modern relationships pretty much perfectly.

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Chicken I can feel your halo.

A new Chick-fil-A opened this morning in Jefferson City, Missouri, and as is the custom at each of the chain's new locations, the first 100 people lined up at the door at opening time become eligible to receive free Chick-fil-A food once a week for an entire year. In Jefferson City, that meant at least 75 people camped out in the store's parking lot and persevered through single-digit temperatures. But no one seemed to mind, the local NBC affiliate reports. Sort of the opposite, in fact: "I'm blessed to be a part of this," one guy says. "This is God's fast-food. I love it." [KOMU]

Read more posts by Hugh Merwin

Filed Under: the chain gang, chick-fil-a, fast-food

From A Hamburger Today

[Photograph: Burger King Norway's Facebook page]

How's this for an unusual social media strategy: in Norway, Burger King launched a campaign dubbed "The Whopper Sellout," which gave all 38,000 fans of their existing Facebook page a choice: be a "true fan" by liking the chain's new Facebook page, or opt for a free Big Mac and be declared a "Whopper sellout". Those who opted for the freebie received a coupon for a Big Mac in the mail, along with a signed letter reminding them they were "banned from Burger King's Facebook page for eternity".

The campaign was designed to separate real fans from those who were posting negative or derogatory messages on BK's Facebook page, along with "free riders" who were only hanging around to score free food.

The result? Burger King Norway shelled their entire stock of 1,000 Big Mac coupons within a week and their Facebook fan base shrunk from 38,000 to 8,481. However, BK sees the stunt as a victory, declaring in the video summary (below) that while the new fan base is significantly smaller, they interact with the brand in a more positive way, and engagement is 5x higher. Since the video was published, the amount of likes on Burger King Norway's Facebook page has increased, and currently stands at 10,626 likes.

Video:Burger King: Whopper sellout campaign results on Vimeo

A post on contently praised the campaign for being "the most interesting piece of content [Burger King has] produced—by far", but adds that ultimately, the chain failed to maintain the momentum, saying engagement has dropped to previous levels because BK "failed to capitalize on the chance to keep creating cool pieces of content".

What do you think? Would you have taken the free Big Mac?

About the author: Erin Jackson is a food writer and photographer who is obsessed with discovering the best eats in San Diego. You can find all of her discoveries on her San Diego food blog EJeats.com. On Twitter, she's @ErinJax

Love hamburgers? Then you'll Like AHT on Facebook! And go follow us on Twitter while you're at it!

Promising to build or preserve 200,000 affordable units over 10 years, Mayor Bill de Blasio seeks to do more than his predecessors in New York City.

The company that conducted a background investigation of Edward J. Snowden fraudulently signed off on hundreds of thousands of incomplete security checks in recent years, the Justice Department said.

[Photographs: Niki Achitoff-Gray, unless otherwise noted]

When you grow up in a household like mine—think whole grain breads, every meal made from scratch, no sugary cereals, nary a fast food visit in sight—you don't exactly walk around thinking to yourself, gee, I'm such a lucky kid whose parents are wisely ensuring that I develop excellent eating habits that will last me a lifetime. No, no. You try to exchange your celery sticks for Dunkaroos (only nobody falls for it), throw temper tantrums in front of the Lunchables display at the supermarket (only nobody falls for it), and develop an alarming habit of sneaking spoonfuls of honey dipped in sugar (only...you don't feel so great). But then genius strikes and you begin scrounging for enough pocket change to slip into McDonald's on your way home from school for some 99-cent chicken McNuggets. And then you do it again and again until forever.

Moral of the story? Any sane child will develop a crazed obsession with chicken nuggets, and there's nothing anyone can do to stop us them. Why, you ask? The answer is simple: chicken nuggets are the sh*t. The bee's knees. The ultimate intersection of mild, tender meatiness and greasy, salty-peppery crunchtasticness.

[Photograph: Robyn Lee]

Unfortunately, chicken nuggets seem to have suffered a bit of a PR crisis in recent years. And if you've ever stopped short of eating one to wonder what's actually in these things?, then you're living proof. It's not your fault—anyone who's watched Jamie Oliver's widely-publicized chicken nugget fail, in which he demonstrates the supposed production of commercial chicken patties, has likely walked away with two impressions. The first is that your average chicken nugget is made from mechanically separated meat; the second is that children will still want to eat it, no matter what it's made of. Here's the good news: only the second one is true (also, I told you so!).

To the chicken nugget skeptics out there, please, have a seat. It's time for an intervention. Real talk: did those chickens lead the happiest, most fulfilling lives? No, almost definitely not. But their carcasses were also not ground up into a paste and then mechanically strained into nugget-shaped dollops for your dining pleasure.* Of course, "pink slime," the stuff of R. L. Stine and Richard Fleischer-esque mystery meat legend, does indeed exist. In your hotdogs and bologna, that is—it's actually highly unlikely you'll find any of the neon-hued goop in a supermarket-variety chicken nugget.

*Or, in the off-chance that they were, you had a fair chance to steer clear, thanks to the USDA-required language on the package—all products containing mechanically separated meat must say so explicitly in the ingredients list.

So what is in your chicken nugget? The details, of course, depend on who's making it, but many frozen ones contain little more than chicken meat, water, salt, and flour. In fact, of the nine brands we tasted, nearly all contained more additives in the breading than the patty itself. So, myth dispensed (sort of?*). So on to the real questions! Which frozen chicken nugget is the best and can any of them measure up to the fast food versions we know and love?

*Let's be honest—if you're trying to find the best frozen chicken nugget on the market, chances are you're not an additive-phobe.

The Contenders

Click here to enlarge image.

We tasted nine different brands of frozen chicken nuggets, limiting our selection to nationally available products explicitly labeled as chicken nuggets. Unfortunately, we were unable to acquire one—Pilgrim's—in New York City.

• Applegate Naturals Chicken Nuggets
• Banquet Chicken Breast Nuggets
• Perdue Chicken Breast Nuggets
• Trader Joe's Chicken Drummellas
• Tyson Chicken Nuggets
• Weaver Chicken Nuggets
• Earth's Best Kidz Baked Chicken Nuggets
• Fast Fixin Jumbo 'Nugget-Shaped' Popcorn Chicken
• Bell & Evans Breaded Chicken Breast Nuggets

The Criteria

What makes for a great chicken nugget? We like a firm but moist patty with a nice, juicy, chicken-flavored bite. And when it comes to breading, it's all about that crisp, lightly browned salt-and-peppery crust that—and here's the crucial trick—adheres firmly to the chicken. Greasy, but not too greasy, salty but not too salty, tender but not too tender; it should stride proudly along that tight rope best known as finger-licking-good.

Tasters were asked to score the overall quality of each brand on a scale of one to ten, with additional ratings for the moistness of the chicken and the crispness and integrity of the breading. Participants also left detailed written comments about each product's flavor and texture for qualitative analysis.

[Photograph: Robyn Lee]

We prepared the nuggets according to their oven instructions for maximum browning potential, tasting them in two batches to ensure that all were scored at relatively comparable temperatures. Ketchup and mustard were on hand for dipping purposes, though many opted to try their nuggets plain.

The Results

It was far from a close race, with Bell & Evans coming out a solid two points higher than any other brand. Interestingly, it turned out that the moistness of the chicken had a relatively low correlation to the nugget's overall rating—where we'd anticipated an abundance of dried-out chicken, we instead found a number of cases where excess moisture pushed the nuggets into mushy (even squishy) territory; a far cry from the juiciness we were looking for. Ingredient lists played a limited role in our findings as well, with chemical and additive-packed products evenly interspersed with the more 'natural' brands.

Tasters seemed inclined to judge flavor rather generously—complaints of blandness were commonplace but had little effect on the actual ratings. Texture was the real Achilles heel for most of our lower-ranked brands, most of which suffered from an unpalatable sponginess (...assuming that there's such a thing as palatable sponginess).

N.B. Cost was determined by grocery store prices at local NYC supermarkets and will vary by location, distributor, and package size.

Bell & Evans (7.3/10)

Though these nuggets emerged from the oven looking pale and greasy, or in the words of one taster, "deeply unsettling," they were a favorite across the board. They also had a major leg up on the competition, thanks to a dirty little secret known as packaging raw, whole pieces of frozen breaded chicken and calling them "nuggets."

With real chunks of chicken, which cooked for nigh on 30 minutes in the oven (to other brands' 10-15), the competitors never really stood a chance. Hence the exclamations of, "Finally, real chicken!" and, "It's actually chicken!" and, "Score! It tastes like real food!" (And my personal favorite, "The only one that didn't make me feel like I was eating space food.") The one consistent complaint was the breading, which—despite the longer cook time—remained pale and proved too greasy and sparse for most tasters.

Alas, how the Bell & Evans nuggets would rank alongside other products labeled as breaded breast pieces remains a mystery that we are regretfully resigned to tackle another day.

Cost: $8.49/12 oz.
Ingredients: Chicken breast meat, water, salt. Breading: Unbleached wheat flour, water, salt, evaporated cane juice, dried yeast, spices, paprika. Flash fried in soybean oil to set breading.

Tyson (5.2/10)

It turns out that even the most questionable of taste memories are powerful. Not one but two participants favorably compared these nuggets to cafeteria food, while others celebrated the crispness of the breading and the "springy," "bouncy" texture of the patty. If anything, Tyson seemed to benefit most from our collective indifference; the chicken was judged bland and somewhat artificial tasting, but ultimately a more-than-adequate nugget fix.

Cost: $4.39/32 oz.
Ingredients: Chicken, water, salt, natural flavor. Breading: Wheat flour, water, wheat starch, white whole wheat flour, salt, yellow corn flour, corn starch, dried onion, dried garlic, dried yeast, brown sugar, paprika, and spices.

Fast Fixin' (4.9/10)

This brand got the most comparisons to fast food, likened to Popeye's popcorn chicken and McNuggets (possibly thanks to the MSG-related effects of hydrolyzed soy protein tucked into the ingredient list). Many tasters were pleased with the compact, dipping-friendly size and quality breading, which was complimented for its peppery, "sweet and spicy" flavor and decent crispness. "A good firm texture" but "not really chickeny" seemed to be the consensus, though a number of participants knocked off points for dryness.

Cost: $5.29/20 oz.
Ingredients: Chicken breast with rib meat, water, textured wheat protein, isolated soy protein, 2% or less of modified cornstarch, carrageenan, hydrolyzed soy protein, salt, flavor, sodium phosphates, lecithin. Breading: Bleached wheat flower, water, wheat flour, flavor, salt, 2% or less of wheat starch, buttermilk, whey, potassium chloride, sodium acid pyrophosphate, sodium bicarbonate, cornstarch, monocalcium phosphate, dextrose, paprika.

Banquet (4.5/10)

"Strange" was the overarching theme here. Many noted something unusual about the crisp "kind of tough" breading, an "interesting 'different' taste that reveals itself slowly." The chicken, on the other hand, was notably "dull" if moist, or, in one commenter's words, "so soft!" Suffice it to say that its most positive evaluation was that "its lack of substance makes it not totally repulsive."

Cost: $5.99/24 oz.
Ingredients: Chicken, water. Breader: Wheat flour, salt, dextrose, spice, soybean oil, yeast, extractives of paprika. Batter: Water, yellow corn flour, cornstarch, dextrose, salt, spices, sugar, yeast extract, modified food starch, garlic powder, guar gum, leavening, textured soy flour, soy flour, 2% or less of soy protein isolate, salt, flavoring, sodium tripolyphosphate, autolyzed yeast extract, dextrose. Fried in vegetable oil with BHT.

Applegate (4.3/10)

Tasters were truly torn over Applegate, and while many gave it middling-to-high marks, it was a few extreme lows that brought its average down. Proponents suggested that it tasted "sort of like real chicken" and remarked that it was "more firm, which is nice." One person elaborated, explaining that "while it is in some ways one of the weaker nuggets so far, it may paradoxically be the most compulsively edible. The taste is average—true finger food."

But those who didn't like it really didn't like it, referring to it as spongy and disturbingly grainy and colorless.

Cost: $7.99/8 oz.
Ingredients: Chicken, water. Less than 2% of corn starch, salt, natural flavor (oregano). Batter: Water, wheat flour, corn starch, yellow corn flour, salt. Breading: Wheat flour, sugar, yeast, soybean oil, salt. Breading set in vegetable oil.

Perdue (3.7/10)

Perdue brought out some serious differences in our tasters' nugget philosophies. A number were emphatically impressed, exclaiming "very tasty seasoning," "distinct, peppery flavor," and "finally, some flavor!" But others focused on the patty, which was alternatively referred to as "mushy," "slimy," and "pasty." If you're a fan of seasoned breading, this may be the nugget for you, but if you're turned off by "pasty" textures, you may want to steer clear.

Cost: $8.99/29 oz.
Ingredients: Boneless skinless chicken breast with rib meat, water, potassium lactate, sodium lactate, salt, sodium phosphate, sodium diacetate, flavoring. Breading: Wheat flour (bleached and enriched), water, yellow corn flour, yellow corn meal, dextrose, dried whey, salt, sugar, yeast, leavening, potassium sorbate, spices, soybean oil, calcium propionate, guar gum, flavoring, paprika extractives.

Weaver (3.6/10)

Tasters were unanimously startled by the texture of Weaver's nuggets, and many seemed more inclined to ask questions than answer them. Why, our commenters wanted to know, "is the breading so loose?"; "is it like a sponge?!"; "does it taste suspiciously like fish?" This brand came up short in all three categories.

Cost: $6.99/28 oz.
Ingredients: Chicken, seasoning (soy protein hydrolyzed, salt, spice), sodium phosphate. Breading:: Bleached wheat flour, water, salt, yellow corn flower, sugar, yeast, soybean oil, dextrose, spice, guar gum, oleoresin parpika, annatto. Fried with vegetable oil.

Trader Joe's (3.5/10)

While the meat itself was dry, there was a notable moisture surrounding the nuggets. Said one commenter, "There are juices, but they don't seem to be coming from the meat, which is kind of dry and grainy." Among the more charming descriptions that emerged here compared Trader Joe's Drummellas to "chewed-up paper pulp" and "wet wood." There weren't any fans of these nuggets among our tasters.

Cost: $3.79/16 oz.
Ingredients: White meat chicken, water, whole wheat flour, cornstarch. Contains 2% or less of: Maltodextrin, sea salt, sunflower oil, cream (milk), rice flour, cooked chicken, chicken fat, yeast, caramel color, malted barley flour, spices, natural flavors, soy lecithin. Breading set in vegetable oil.

Earth's Best (3.3/10)

Another case of split numbers draws this ranking into question—a number of tasters seemed unconvinced that Earth's Best did indeed include chicken, likening its flavor to "fake vegan 'chicken'" and refering to the texture as "mushy and pasty." But others remarked on its "really good flavor," "fair texture," "nice spicy-sweet taste" and "good coarse crumb." At the end of the day, though, there was an abundance of low marks that sent this brand to the bottom of our list.

Cost: $8.99/16 oz.
Ingredients: Chicken meat, water. Contains 2% or less of evaporated cane syrup, garlic powder, onion powder, rice starch, sea salt, spice. Batter and Breading: whole wheat flour, water, wheat flour, corn starch, evaporated corn syrup, sea salt, leavening, garlic powder, yellow corn flour, yeast, onion powder, spice, sunflower oil, extractive of turmeric. Breading set in expeller-pressed canola oil and/or soybean oil and/or safflower oil.

Our Tasting Methodology: All taste tests are conducted completely blind and without discussion. Tasters taste samples in random order. For example, taster A may taste sample 1 first, while taster B will taste sample 6 first. This is to prevent palate fatigue from unfairly giving any one sample an advantage. Tasters are asked to fill out tasting sheets ranking the samples for various criteria that vary from sample to sample. All data is tabulated and results are calculated with no editorial input in order to give us the most impartial representation of actual results possible.

About the author: Niki Achitoff-Grayis the associate editor of Serious Eats and a recent graduate of the Institute of Culinary Education. She's pretty big into oysters, offal, and most edible things. You can follow her on Twitter @eatandcry.

Netflix just reported its Q4 2013 earnings, and amidst the good news was a word of caution in the company's letter to investors. Last week, a federal court struck down the FCC's net neutrality rules — and Netflix took notice.  "Unfortunately, Verizon successfully challenged the US net neutrality rules," Netflix writes in its shareholder letter. "In principle, a domestic ISP now can legally impede the video streams that members request from Netflix, degrading the experience we jointly provide."

In a worst-case scenario, Netflix imagines a situation in which it would have to pay fees to ISPs to stop that degradation, but it sounds like the company wouldn't just sit back and let that situation happen. "Were this draconian scenario...

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When you own both Pixar and Star Wars, the most logical move would be to let Pixar make a Star Wars movie, no? Well, that's exactly what Disney is planning according to The Latino Review.

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Looks like Don Draper may have contributed to Lucky Strike's recent sales increase.

While the claim that Mad Men could have driven a nearly 50% (representing an additional 10 billion cigarettes) increase in Lucky Strike sounds like typical advertising puffery, it's hard to pin down another driver. Lucky Strike did launch new flavors, update packaging and launch "capsule" cigarettes in the five years since Mad Men premiered, but so too did its competitors. The only new country the brand entered was Turkey -- and that wasn't until 2011. Even if one excluded all capsule (2010- ) and "All Natural" (2011-) cigarette sales (which would have been predominantly cannibalized, rather than net new), Lucky Strike would still have grown 12% between 2007 and 2012, five times faster than the industry overall and eight times British American Tobacco (the owner of Lucky Strike). Could it really have been Don Draper?

Sales of Canadian Club whiskey have turned around since Mad Men started as well. (via nextdraft)

Tags: advertising   Lucky Strike   Mad Men   TV

Sheryl Canter extensively researched the best way to season a cast iron pan and here is what she recommends you do. (Because science.)

I've read dozens of Web pages on how to season cast iron, and there is no consensus in the advice. Some say vegetable oils leave a sticky surface and to only use lard. Some say animal fat gives a surface that is too soft and to only use vegetable oils. Some say corn oil is the only fat to use, or Crisco, or olive oil. Some recommend bacon drippings since lard is no longer readily available. Some say you must use a saturated fat -- that is, a fat that is solid at room temperature, whether it's animal or vegetable (palm oil, coconut oil, Crisco, lard). Some say never use butter. Some say butter is fine. Some swear by Pam (spray-on canola oil with additives). Some say the additives in Pam leave a residue at high temperatures and pure canola oil is best. Some say it doesn't matter what oil you use.

They are all wrong. It does matter what oil you use, and the oil that gives the best results is not in this list. So what is it? Here are some hints: What oil do artists mix with pigment for a high quality oil paint that dries hard and glassy on the canvas? What oil is commonly used by woodturners to give their sculptures a protective, soft-sheen finish? It's the same oil. Now what is the food-grade equivalent of this oil?

The oil used by artists and woodturners is linseed oil. The food-grade equivalent is called flaxseed oil. This oil is ideal for seasoning cast iron for the same reason it's an ideal base for oil paint and wood finishes. It's a "drying oil", which means it can transform into a hard, tough film. This doesn't happen through "drying" in the sense of losing moisture through evaporation. The term is actually a misnomer. The transformation is through a chemical process called "polymerization".

Those before and after photos are hard to argue with. (via @akuban)

Update: Canter wrote a bit more about seasoning and added an extra step to the process. (via @_Atticus)

Tags: science   Sheryl Canter

If it isn't tragedy enough that thousands of city schoolchildren are being forced to brave outdoor elements and U.S. History classes today no matter how many spoons they left under their pillows last night, it appears the Thundarsnortex has claimed an Important Victim: a pane of glass was cracked at the flagship Fifth Avenue Apple Store last night, and now a single 32-foot tall sheet has shattered into a million little pieces, just like the hopes and dreams of anyone with a crashed hard drive trying to get an appointment at the Genius Bar. [ more › ]

These days, we tend to think of New York's bridges as traffic obstacles. But at the turn of the last century, the bridges that sprang up in thickets around Manhattan's shores were objects of wonder and civic pride—near magical pieces of infrastructure that took many years (and lives) to build.

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You might have heard the rumors that Kansas City is about the receive the world's largest waterslide, but if you haven't seen the new POV video.. you don't know how terrifying it's actually going to be.

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Crime epic Grand Theft Auto 5 was listed earlier today on Amazon France (since removed) and it's still sitting pretty on Amazon Germany for pre-order. An almost identical listing for a PC version of the game occurred around this time on the two sites ...

Filed under: Car Buying, Coupe, Performance, Nissan

Nissan has announced a few pricing tweaks for the 2015 GT-R, one of which pushes the most basic variant past $100,000 for the first time. The 2014 cost of entry was $99,590, while the 2015 GT-R starts at $101,770.

The GT-R Black Edition, meanwhile, will demand $111,510, up from 2014's $109,300. The GT-R Track Edition retains the $115,710 asking price of the 2014 car. The price increases on the base and Black Edition come with some additional goodies that should soften the blow to pocketbooks, including a retuned suspension that promises a "more sophisticated ride," while LED headlights come standard. Bose Active Noise Cancellation has also been added to the 2015 GT-R, as has a new interior color option on the base model. For a full rundown of new goodies on the GT-R, check out our original post on the 2015 vintage.

Interestingly, the destination charge for the 2015 GT-R has climbed dramatically, from 2014's $1,000 to $1,595 for the latest car. We've reached out to Nissan to see why there was such a big increase, and will update as soon as we have an update.

Until then, scroll down for the official press release from Nissan.

Continue reading Nissan raises base GT-R price to $101,770 for 2014

Nissan raises base GT-R price to $101,770 for 2014 originally appeared on Autoblog on Tue, 21 Jan 2014 18:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Scientists at the University of Vermont's Proctor Maple Research Center have made an interesting discovery. It seems that the sap used to produce maple syrup doesn't flow from the tops of trees, it gets sucked up from the trees' roots. Which means that maple syrup makers can use saplings instead of fully grown maple trees to produce syrup.

They realized that their discovery meant sugarmakers could use saplings, densely planted in open fields, to harvest sap. In other words, it is possible that maple syrup could now be produced as a row crop like every other commercial crop in North America.

In a natural forest, which varies in maple density, an average 60 to 100 taps per acre will yield 40 to 50 gallons of syrup. According to the researchers' calculations, an acre of what is now called "the plantation method" could sustain 5,800 saplings with taps yielding 400 gallons of syrup per acre. If the method is realized, producing maple syrup on a commercial scale may no longer be restricted to those with forest land; it could require just 50 acres of arable land instead of 500 acres of forest. Furthermore, any region with the right climate for growing maples would be able to start up maple "farms". The natural forest would become redundant.

(via @youngna)

Tags: food   science

The shuttle buses that transport workers for huge tech firms like Google, Facebook, and Apple between San Francisco and Silicon Valley every day have come under heavy fire lately, but today a vote was passed unanimously on a pilot program that the city hopes will help ease those tensions. In front of a meeting room packed full with journalists and citizens, the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency (SFMTA) just approved a proposal that will see commuter shuttle buses pay to share approximately 200 spots with city buses.

Companies that operate the buses will soon have to pay $1 for every stop they make, every day, to the SFMTA — amounting to about $1.5 million over the 18-month pilot (set to start in July 2014). The agency...

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Toying around with voice-recognition apps, developer Tal Ater noticed something strange. Because of a quirk in Chrome's microphone settings, any site enabled for voice-recognition could use a pop-up window to keep recording almost indefinitely, hidden in the background. In Ater's demonstration, he closes the tab and continues talking, only to reveal a pop-up behind the main Chrome window, transcribing everything he says. It's an unsettling thought: could a malicious site use Chrome to listen in on users' offline conversations?

Ater first reported the bug in September

The core of the problem is Chrome's microphone permissions policy. Once you've given an HTTPS-enabled site permission to use your microphone in Chrome, every instance of...

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From Serious Eats: New York

[Photographs: Niko Triantafillou]

Coffee and Danish lovers rejoice. Paris Baguette has you covered with their new all-in-one Coffee-Danish ($2.50). The lightly sweetened pastry combines an almond flour dough and a thick coffee coating. As soon as you open the wrapper it's as if a cup of fresh-brewed coffee appeared right on the table next to you.

Unlike an American-style coffee cake, the crust on this pastry doesn't have much sugar—it's more akin to a dehydrated coffee pastry cream. Underneath that crust is a moist, almost wet, brioche-style dough, a softness achieved through a healthy dose of butter in the recipe. Hello, new breakfast routine.

About the author: Native New Yorker Niko Triantafillou is the founder of DessertBuzz.com his photographs of desserts and pastry chefs have appeared in the Wall Street Journal and Dessert Professional Magazine. He is an unabashed foodie nerdling. Follow him on Twitter at @DessertBuzz.

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Voodoo Doughnut's famous maple-bacon doughnut [Photograph: Robyn Lee]

If only I could make this news alert flash neon! Because the folks over at io9 have cast hilarious, alarming light on the (albeit only maybe) existence of sexually transmitted food poisoning. Of course, that fact doesn't really get to the heart of the issue. Namely, there are people in the throes of food poisoning having sex?? —Niki Achitoff-Gray, Associate Editor

Like absinthe, Jeppson's Malort is flavored with wormwood. But unlike the green fairy, Malort doesn't temper any of the plant's bitterness, instead preferring to let it all hit your tongue like a sucker punch. It's bizarrely popular in Chicago, even if the vast majority is consumed on dares. Still, if you thought Malort was too bitter before, you probably don't want to try it now. The Chicago Tribune found out that while the recipe hasn't changed, the wormwood sourced by Jeppson over the past few years was rather mild. Well, that's over now, and the new wormwood is apparently strong stuff. Just remember this information when someone calls for a round of shots. —Nick Kindelsperger, Chicago Editor

Here is an amazing comic of the maple syrup heist. —Tracie Lee, Designer

This old Saveur article shares how Campari is made. (Well, at least the part of the method that's not top-secret.) Thanks to Michael Ruhlman for mentioning it here (along with a cocktail recipe). —Maggie Hoffman, Senior and Drinks Editor

Veuve Clicquot, if your customers can't tell the difference between these two labels, you've got more problems than a tiny wine company. —Carrie Vasios Mullins, Sweets Editor

I love Peter Meehan's writing, I love Japan, and I love uni. Therefore, Peter Meehan writing about his quest for transcendent uni in Hokkaido is pretty much tailor-made for me, even if Meehan winds up writing about plenty of non-urchin foods, too. —Jamie Feldmar, Managing Editor

Voodoo Doughnut in Portland is the busiest and wackiest doughnut shop I've ever been to. And according to this behind-the-scenes feature at Willamette Week from someone who worked at Voodoo Doughnut for three months, it's "perhaps the most ruthlessly efficient business in Portland." Highlights include: why you shouldn't smile on the job, how to tell which doughnuts are the freshest, and the room with piles of cash. —Robyn Lee, AHT Editor

Florida is now under a court order to offer kosher meals to inmates, but they've already been inundated with requests from gentile prisoners and the Department of Corrections is concerned because kosher meals cost four times as much as a regular meal. A fascinating, touchy topic. —Ben Fishner, Ad Ops Admin

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Blizzard's digital collectible card game Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft has entered open beta, and is now available as a free download for Windows and Mac in North America. Originally announced at PAX East in 2013, Hearthstone saw a lengthy closed ...