Rtersieva

A New York Times piece (as carried by the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette) outlines a fascinating project operating in unlikely circumstances for a quixotic goal. They want to control, and return to earth, the International Sun-Earth Explorer-3, launched in 1978 but which "appears to be in good working order." Engineer Dennis Wingo, along with like minded folks (of whom he says "We call ourselves techno-archaeologists") has established a business called Skycorp that "has its offices in the McDonald's that used to serve the Navy's Moffett air station, 15 minutes northwest of San Jose, Calif. After the base closed, NASA converted it to a research campus for small technology companies, academia and nonprofits. ... The race to revive the craft, ISEE-3, began in earnest in April. At the end of May, using the Arecibo Observatory radio telescope in Puerto Rico, the team succeeded in talking to the spacecraft, a moment Mr. Wingo described as "way cool." This made Skycorp the first private organization to command a spacecraft outside Earth orbit, he said. The most disheartening part: "No one has the full operating manual anymore, and the fragments are sometimes contradictory." The most exciting? "Despite the obstacles, progress has been steady, and Mr. Wingo said the team should be ready to fire the engines within weeks."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Breathe new life into coleslaw by dressing it up in five delicious flavor variations. [Photographs: Joshua Bousel]

Growing up, I assumed that coleslaw was some sort of joke. Why would I ever want that sorry little paper cup of tough, bland cabbage? You know, the kind that comes as a paltry afterthought with your towering sandwich at the local Greek diner. I always figured it was just a steady, meticulous way to rid the world of a vegetable no one really wanted, one sandwich at a time.

And that was pretty much my view for over a decade, right up until I found the Gospel of Barbecue. With the great tradition of smoked meats, I was presented with coleslaw alongside pulled pork, ribs, and brisket, served in portions that made it seem like something you'd actually want to eat—and best of all, it was!

Good coleslaw provides a light and fresh contrast to heavy, barbecued meats, with a tang that manages to cut through (at least some) of the deliciously greasy fat. So I stopped shying away from slaw and started to embrace it, getting to know a range of variations that have turned me from an uncompromising hater to a full-on lover of all things cabbage salad.

Over the years, I've experimented with making slaw at home, but I never really thought I was killing it until Kenji gave coleslaw the Food-Lab treatment last summer. The trick is to purge your slaw vegetables of all excess moisture, leaving behind a well-seasoned mix that's nice and tender with just the right amount of crunch. The process itself requires simply mixing the shredded vegetables with sugar and salt for about five minutes before giving it a good rinse and a ride in the salad spinner.

Now that I've got that perfect traditional slaw down pat, I've shifted my efforts to varying the dressing flavors.

Vinegar Slaw

This was my gateway slaw, the first I ever remember really loving. We met at the second Big Apple Block Party in New York back in 2004 and, while I can't remember exactly who was slinging the vinegar slaw that year, a very close approximation has since showed up in Mike and Amy Mill's book, Peace, Love, and Barbecue.

The dressing is simply a one-to-one mix of cider vinegar and sugar with a little bit of garlic, oil, and celery seeds, which add a light celery flavor and bit of texture. It may be simple, but it works so darn well; those tangy, sweet flavors pair harmoniously with the more complex rubs and seasonings found in most barbecue. Because of its bright, fresh character, I also love it as a sandwich component.

Get the recipe for Vinegar Slaw »

Lexington-Style Red Slaw

When I first heard the term "red slaw," I thought it meant coleslaw made with red cabbage, but in the Lexington area of North Carolina, that's not the case. "Red" refers to the color of the dressing, which uses ketchup in place of the standard mayo.

Mimicking the barbecue sauce also common in that region, Lexington-style red slaw relies heavily on vinegar, with ketchup and sugar used to take a bit of the edge off, along with pepper and hot sauce to add a little heat. It's a combo that's great alongside a pile of smoky chopped hog, with the slaw adding a complementary sweetness, tang, and spice.

Get the recipe for Lexington-Style Red Slaw »

Mustard Slaw

Of all the slaws here, this mustard variation is my absolute favorite. I tinkered with the recipe on and off for years before finding the right balance between creamy, sweet, and tangy, with a mellow mustard bite.

My dressing is made of equal amounts of mayo, yellow mustard, vinegar, and sugar. A bit of hot sauce and some celery seeds deepen the flavor without over-complicating things. I love the balanced and depth of flavor of this universal crowd-pleaser.

Get the recipe for Mustard Slaw »

Tangy Apple Slaw

To add both tartness and fruitiness to this coleslaw, I shred Granny Smith apples into my cabbage and carrots. When settling on an appropriate dressing to pair with this version, I started with sour cream, which makes a more rich and complex base than mayonnaise alone. To keep it from overpowering the other components, I cut it with a touch of mayo, along with vinegar, sugar, honey, black pepper, and mustard powder. I love the texture of celery seeds, but didn't think they'd enhance the flavor profile, so I decided to go with more neutral poppy seeds here. The final slaw is tangy and tart, adding a new dimension to the classic with the bright fruitiness of the apple.

Get the recipe for Tangy Apple Slaw »

Jalapeño Slaw

Tex-Mex and barbecue are my two favorite cuisines. Since I've managed to cover a pretty decent range of barbecue-style coleslaws, I figured I'd try out a recipe that has a little something in common with my other great love.

As with the previous recipe, sour cream seemed like the place to start. But this time, I threw in some buttermilk with the mayo. I also scaled back on the vinegar in favor of bright, tart lime juice and added in some supporting Tex-Mex flavors—namely grassy cilantro, earthy cumin, and hot jalapeño. This is the kind of slaw that would be right at home in a fajita.

Get the recipe for Jalapeño Slaw »

Recipes!

• Jalapeño Coleslaw
• Tangy Apple Coleslaw
• Vinegar Coleslaw
• Mustardy Coleslaw
• Lexington-Style Red Coleslaw

rihenna:

_{Rihanna as Tip in the first official Dreamworks Animation Trailer Home}

Tip is such a cutie

"In preparing for battle I have always found that plans are useless, but planning is indispensable."

Toast goes undercover to rescue some untoasted toast. #augdementedreality #sharpie #animationcel #whiteout #toastguard

As I stroll the aisles of my favorite beer stores this time of year, I'm surrounded on all sides by a flotilla of summer-themed brews, from cases of lemon-tinged shandies to six-packs of fruity blonde ales. These thirst-quenching styles do the trick, but there's a funkier alternative out there that happens to be original summer seasonal: the Belgian style known as the saison or farmhouse ale.

Here's a little more about saisons, and why they are the original summer beer.

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You can tell a lot about a person from what comes at the end of their email. This cartoon, from the Truth Facts comic by New Creations, does a wonderful job of translating the awful nonsense some people choose to include at the end of their correspondence. Ouch. [Truth Facts via Flowing Data]

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Google is apparently in talks to buy up part of Virgin Galactic, but not to take a leisure cruise: Sky News claims that it will buy "crucial access to satellite-launch technology" to help put its new low-Earth orbiters into the sky .

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Scottish folk/power metallers ALESTORM will release their new album, "Sunset On The Golden Age", on August 5 in North America (one day earlier internationally) via Napalm Records. The CD was recorded at Lasse Lammert's LSD Studio in Lübeck, Germany. "Sunset On The Golden Age" will contain the following tracks: * Walk The Plank * Drink * Magnetic North * 1741 (The Battle Of Cartagena) * Mead From Hell * Surf Squid Warfare * Quest For Ships * Wooden Leg! * Hangover * Sunset On The Golden Age The video for the song "Drink" can be seen below. "This is gonna blow all your expectations as to what an ALESTORM album is all about," commented ALESTORM's Christopher Bowes (vocals/keytar). "Over the past couple of years we've been writing non-stop, and we've come up with a ton of badass material. "Some of this stuff is catchiest pirate party anthems you've ever heard, with choruses that'll make you want to raise a pint of rum up high and sing your guts out. And for the fans of the epic stuff, we've got some songs that hit the 10-minute mark, with lyrical themes about historical events and crazy mythological madness. It's gonna rule!" ALESTORM's "Shipwrecked" video was filmed in Belgrade, Serbia with director Ivan Colic, who has previously worked with EPICA, KAMELOT and KATAKLYSM. The song comes off the band's third album, "Back Through Time", which was released in June 2011 via Napalm Records. "Back Through Time" was produced by Lasse Lammert at LSD Studio. The effort was made available as a jewelcase, mediabook, LP, and special-edition boxset "featuring bonus tracks and other mad shite!"

Physical activity has recently come to be seen as one of the best forms of medicine available. Studies have shown that simply getting on your feet can ward off all manner of ill health, from cancers to cardiovascular diseases. But how much do you need to do to reap the benefits?

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We inhabit a 3D world with space all around us: I'm here, you're there and there's a distance separating us. But what really is is that seperates us?

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"I'll be more enthusiastic about encouraging thinking outside the box when there's evidence of any thinking going on inside it."

A grandmother from Pembury in Kent wins the dubious honour of being named the UK's worst holiday photographer.

capedgirardeau writes: An update to the Google Play store now groups app permissions into collections of related permissions, making them much less fine grained and potentially misleading for users. For example, the SMS permissions group would allow an app access to both reading and sending SMS messages. The problem is that once an app has access to the group of permissions, it can make use of any of the allowed actions at any time without ever informing the user. As Google explains: "It's a good idea to review permissions groups before downloading an app. Once you've allowed an app to access a permissions group, the app may use any of the individual permissions that are part of that group. You won't need to manually approve individual permissions updates that belong to a permissions group you've already accepted."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Swiss folk metallers ELUVEITIE will release their new album, "Origins", on August 5 via Nuclear Blast Records. The cover artwork for the CD was created by ELUVEITIE frontman Chrigel Glanzmann and can be seen below. The effort was once again recorded at New Sound Studio in Pfäffikon, a municipality in the canton of Zurich in Switzerland, with producer Tommy Vetterli (a.k.a. Tommy T. Baron; CORONER/ex-KREATOR guitarist). "Origins" track listing: 01. Origins 02. The Nameless 03. From Darkness 04. Celtos 05. Virunus 06. Nothing 07. The Call Of The Mountains 08. Sucellos 09. Inception 10. Vianna 11. The Silver Sister 12. King 13. The Day Of Strife 14. Ogmios 15. Carry The Torch 16. Eternity The song "King" can be streamed using the SoundCloud widget below. Says Chrigel: "'Origins' deals in depth with Celtic mythology, or, to be more precise, with aetiological tales from Gaul in particular. Hence we're facing strongly mythical as well as spiritual subjects on this album, topics which we have approached very scientifically and in cooperation with several scientists and diverse universities. "Many aspects of Gaulish mythology and spirituality remain in the dark nonetheless, while others run through the theme like a golden thread — like this eminent, yet innominate god, for instance, of which the Gauls claimed to be direct descendants and which was compared to the Roman chtonic deity Dis Pater. "Today we cannot say which Gaulish god this was exactly. But according to all we know, it's likely that we're dealing with Sucellos here. Throughout space and time he appears over and over again — from very old spiritual customs of ancient Gaulish tribes in today's northern Spain all the way to later statues in today's Switzerland, France and elsewhere. Perhaps he is this mysterious nameless one. "The album cover of 'Origins' is designed after the hammer/club-shaped 'halo' of Sucellos, as seen on a statue, that was found in a shrine of a gallo-roman household in today's France. It was created under the scientific supervision of experts from the university of Zürich." ELUVEITIE recently announced the addition of violinist Nicole Ansperger to the group's ranks. ELUVEITIE's last album, "Helvetios", sold 4,200 copies in the United States in its first week of release to debut at position No. 143 on The Billboard 200 chart. The CD landed at position No. 3 on the Top New Artist Albums (Heatseekers) chart, which lists the best-selling albums by new and developing artists, defined as those who have never appeared in the Top 100 of The Billboard 200.

Iceland, with its extreme landscapes, jagged lava fields and Northern Lights, is arguably one of the most photogenic countries in the world. So it’s no surprise that over half a million tourists flock there every year to shoot the landscape. But UK-based photographer Andy Lee, on his first visit to the country, came back with a series of photos titled “Blue Iceland” that captured the waterfalls, peaks and roads in, literally, a whole new light. Using infrared photography to pick up invisible light rather than visible light, Lee transformed Iceland into a series of stark, moody and somewhat dreamlike silhouettes. At times the austere rock formations and glowing waterfalls almost appear to be painted. You can see much more of Lee’s work over on his portfolio site. In the words of Lee himself, “Infrared and Iceland, a match made in heaven.” (via PetaPixel)

Right up there with how the gun on the original Duck Hunt game worked, why it hurts so much to step on a Lego brick is one of the questions we're asked the most, so it's high time we answered it. As anyone who's done it knows, stepping on a Lego block is something akin to being shot in the foot by a knife soaked in wasp venom. In truth, this is an inherent danger of allowing a child to exist in your home.

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mymodernmet:

Russian art and design studio Brain Mash crafted a series of three-dimensional paintings that seem to pop from the walls. Viewers are invited to interact with the colorful, realistically-rendered works as a part of this mobile exhibition.

robotindisguise:

 

"Reality is the leading cause of stress amongst those in touch with it."

Sushi Tantrum #soybath #soakinthesauce #augdementedreality #sharpie #whiteout #transparency #animationcel