Holy crap, this is fascinating: how to make sugar into caramel without melting it, and use it for baking. And it has a lower glycemic index! Weird. So I tried it last night--made 4 lbs of "caramel sugar", and then made oatmeal-ginger cookie dough tonight. We shall discover tomorrow what the results are ( Read more... )

Noted for later: Sherwood Smith recommends some self-published books.

The Economist discusses an online exhibition of art by Muslim women.

The New Yorker on What happened to the Environmental Movement?

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I've never tried to make Indian food (beyond some really simple curries) but red lentil dal with broccoli looks really good.

These rice ( Read more... )

Oh, this is fun: your Dalek of the day.

By way of Alyssa Rosenberg: an oral history of The Wire, at Maxim (yikes).

Linked by miss-porcupine: this cool series of Shakespeare adaptations by the BBC will be coming this summer. Christmas in June for Anglothespianphiles! Jeremy Irons! Tom Hiddleston! Patrick Stewart! Ben Whishaw! Coolness! (Although "my" Henry V ( Read more... )

Summer has arrived! Which means I'm still freezing in my over-conditioned office, and I can't sit in the sun to eat my lunch. But at least I don't have to wear a coat in the morning.

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I didn't get a chance to see Company this weekend (unlike many of you folks), which I'm a bit disappointed about, but apparently it was pretty good. Linda ( Read more... )

So Salon's TableTalk is shutting down. If you don't count my brief stint on Usenet in 1989/90, TT was my first online community; I met people there I'm still friends with [::waves at
( Read more... )

Zunguzungu (I really gotta learn this guy's name) offers up a pretty sound critique of the idea that choice of major is inherently tied to financial well-being. He points out: the statistical variance within individual majors is actually so huge that the predictive power of the data is negligible, contrary to the grand claims which are made for ( Read more... )

My only real comment about Castle is that DB Sweeney looks entirely wrong with blond hair. I mean, seriously seriously wrong.

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So... it's like the fanfic community for original fiction? Huh.

The NY Review of Books has a long piece on animal transformation, Peter Parker, and why Julie Taymor's attempt to bring Spider-Man to the stage failed.

( Read more... )

My most sincere sympathies to the Northeasterners on my flist: here it's sunny & 75, or will be by the time this entry is posted. [Errr, no longer true at 10:55PM, but it's still pretty warm.] I wore red heels today to celebrate ( Read more... )

Baaaby meerkat!

Language Log discusses the dispute between Apple & Microsoft over who owns the words "App Store". I love my Macbook and iPod, but seriously, Apple? Seriously? ::facepalm::

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I just can't fathom why Disney thinks turning Miss Marple into a young woman is a good idea. I mean, that she's an old woman, seemingly fragile, and ( Read more... )

Quote of the day: You cannot defeat Fate with scaffolding.

Ursula LeGuin is one of my heroes. I hate disagreeing with her. But I disagree with her here, even though I haven't seen the movie yet. Shakespeare's been dead for four centuries: I think it's okay to re-imagine his work now, especially since if you don't like Helen Mirren as Prospero, ( Read more... )