When engineers become cooks: engineering high-tech food in a laboratory

When the world's best chefs want something that defies the laws of physics, they come to one man: Dave Arnold, the DIY guru of high-tech cooking

...his uncompromising conception of culinary perfection requires that gin and tonics be completely, crystalline clear...

...Carbonated watermelon. Gelatin spheres with liquid centers that pop in your mouth. Broths and sauces whipped into foams. Shrimp flesh extruded into "noodles." Hot-center desserts with exteriors flash-frozen by liquid nitrogen. Vanilla beans sizzled tableside with lasers...

..."He´s helping chefs take their food to the next level."...

...Dufresne was (and still is) interested in sous vide and other methods of cooking food slowly in liquids, at low temperatures, until the exact moment it is done...

...hydrocolloids, a class of ingredients familiar to anyone who´s perused the labels of processed foods-cellulose, xanthan gum, agar, alginate, carrageenan, gelatin-but that, until recently (with the exception of gelatin), were not a fine cook´s ingredients. Generally, hydrocolloids are used to thicken, gel, or stabilize liquids; they can also be used to great effect to change texture, enabling a chef to produce a foam that won´t collapse or, in Arnold´s case, to make a "sponge cake" with methyl cellulose that can be shot from a compressed whipped-cream canister onto a plate without requiring baking...

see the whole article at:

http://www.popsci.com/node/8923

Also, on a related note, 

Inside a high-tech laboratory that's spinning out the future of food (in a centrifuge at 13 Gs)

The 20,000-square-foot warehouse outside Seattle that houses the research lab of Intellectual Ventures. The former Chief Technology Officer of Microsoft had an idea for a cookbook he wanted to write, and he needed some kitchen space.

...tour started with the ultrasonic bath that cleans the grime off whatever's submerged in the water via high-energy cavitation. The team discovered that subjecting cut potatoes to the bath creates tiny fissures in their surfaces; which, when the potatoes are French-fried, result in a much crispier exterior...

http://www.popsci.com/technology/article/2011-02/tour-modernist-cuisine-kitchen-laboratory

Definition of loid from Dictionary.com

Definition of loid: to open (a locked door) by sliding a thin piece of celluloid or plastic between the door edge and doorframe to force open a spring lock.

From (cellu)loid, circa 1955-60.

Websites to order skis.

Websites to order skis.
Asogear.com
Levelninesports.com
Evo sports Seattle
http://www.evo.com/
Outlet coupons


Sent from my iPhone

A brilliant plan

From a good friend -
"I got an Achilles tendonitis so I bought a kayak and will paddle that till I mess up my rotator cuff, then go back to the bike.  This seems to me a brilliant strategy; having enough sports that injure differing parts of the body and a good insurance plan. "

Gesture-based control of computer windows.

http://youtu.be/I36Aqk1A6vY

Gesturing to do complex things that are finicky with the mouse on the computer. As Tom Cruise does in 'Minority Report'

See at 0:17 in

http://youtu.be/xMtUVcOHPtw

Humankind: Be Both.

Just some insight into the root of the quote. It was made popular by an event production company named Pallotta TeamWorks back in the early 2000s. 

The company is closed now, but you can still find their website at "http://www.pallottateamworks.com". If you click on the "Photos & Videos" menu item, and select "Our Videos", and look for the one named "What Can Kindness Do?" (the last one one the right), you will hear that the "Be Both" is the last line of the poem in the video. (It's actually phrased as a question: "Can Humankind be both?")

From 

http://justjan1.blogspot.ca/2011/05/humankind-be-both.html?m=1

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Google's Streetview now includes interior panoramas.

I was looking up a restaurant in Seattle, and realized that now Google Streetview can show you the interior of selected locations.

Here's the restaurant interior. (I was looking at it because the proprietor is raising money for a cookbook.)  

And here's a nearby hat shop I never knew existed. 

If they don't work, google map downtown seattle, and hover the Streetview icon (the little yellow 'pegman,' is apparently what he's called) over an area of downtown on maximum zoom, and look for a yellow dot over an interior. 

Of course the aim of showing interiors is to attract customers, as google says in soliciting these photos. So now you'll have even more ways to pick a hotel at an unfamiliar destination, restaurants, and doctor's offices and who knows what else. 

Anyway, this makes me ask a bunch of questions, and maybe you can answer them. Why does this interior world not connect seamlessly with the outside street? You can navigate out the door of an establishment, but that world stops and you need to zoom out to map view to reconnect with the regular exterior Streetview. 

Don't you think there will be great uses for these interior shots in a hundred years? Since you can view historical satellite images on google earth, I'm sure that historical archives of these interior shots will soon be available at a click.  Now these sort of interiors wil be on google earth and easily accessible. You can look into a store and see all the items on a shelf.  I find it hard remembering what things I could buy at the store that are no longer available, like Playbox cookies.

 But now you'll be able to browse historical store shelves. Imagine 20 years from now taking a virtual stroll through a familiar store and seeing all the items on the shelves from years ago. Lots of possibilities. 

Here's how to look at historical satellite images, though they neglect to tell you until the end that you have to enable "Historical imagery" under the 'View' tab.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=vwHGG1dgujc

But I digress - back to the social implications of interior photos. 

And why do these businesses have their interior photographed empty? Wouldn't it sell better if they were full of people? Google would blur out the faces, so there aren't privacy issues. 

And what are the limits on this exercise - will Google absorb real estate photos of interiors and keep those on file? 

The amount of data they keep is increasing exponentially - first maps was just the depiction of the flat surface, then it was 3D, then it included the ocean floor, then streetview, then updated street view over time, now interiors.  And you can tell from the multiple panoramas they take of each interior location that there is no concern about the amount of data they are storing.  

It reminds me of when google traffic went from municipal data for a few large cities to street-by-street live traffic from crowd-sourced data from people's GPS-enabled phones, and google now uses such data to predict your arrival time when giving directions.

UPDATE

...A few years after posting this I watched an interesting google lecture on the history of google maps, and how the interface advanced over time. I found it interesting.