Chinese Cuisine Patterns Revealed By Food Network Analysis

food, cuisine, regionality, locality, flavour, open sauces

Regional cuisines often differ substantially in their cooking methods, their food preparation and above all their ingredients. But they can also be closely related. So here’s an interesting question: what factors determine the links between regional cuisines?

http://www.technologyreview.com/view/517401/food-network-analysis-reveals-patterns-behind-chinese-regional-cuisines/

Geography and similarity of regional cuisines in China

food, china, cuisine, food network, data analysis

Food occupies a central position in every culture and it is therefore of great interest to understand the evolution of food culture. The advent of the World Wide Web and online recipe repositories has begun to provide unprecedented opportunities for data-driven, quantitative study of food culture. Here we harness an online database documenting recipes from various Chinese regional cuisines and investigate the similarity of regional cuisines in terms of geography and climate. We found that the geographical proximity, rather than climate proximity is a crucial factor that determines the similarity of regional cuisines. We develop a model of regional cuisine evolution that provides helpful clues to understand the evolution of cuisines and cultures.

http://arxiv.org/abs/1307.3185

Flavor network and the principles of food pairing

network analysis, food pairing, flavour pairing, food, cuisine, open sauces, research

The cultural diversity of culinary practice, as illustrated by the variety of regional cuisines, raises the question of whether there are any general patterns that determine the ingredient combinations used in food today or principles that transcend individual tastes and recipes. We introduce a flavor network that captures the flavor compounds shared by culinary ingredients. Western cuisines show a tendency to use ingredient pairs that share many flavor compounds, supporting the so-called food pairing hypothesis. By contrast, East Asian cuisines tend to avoid compound sharing ingredients. Given the increasing availability of information on food preparation, our data-driven investigation opens new avenues towards a systematic understanding of culinary practice.

http://arxiv.org/abs/1111.6074

The Vitamin Myth: Why We Think We Need Supplements

heath, food, supliments, Linus Pauling, vitamins, cancer, flu, science

Seven previous studies had already shown that vitamins increased the risk of cancer and heart disease and shortened lives. Still, in 2012, more than half of all Americans took some form of vitamin supplements. What few people realize, however, is that their fascination with vitamins can be traced back to one man. A man who was so spectacularly right that he won two Nobel Prizes and so spectacularly wrong that he was arguably the world’s greatest quack.

http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2013/07/the-vitamin-myth-why-we-think-we-need-supplements/277947/

On the Empire of the Ants

ants, communication, language, science

Science is an exercise in curiosity about nature. It is a process. It sometimes involves complex and costly apparatus, or the resources of giant institutes. Sometimes it involves looking at ants in an ant farm, and knowing some clever math. Many people are gobsmacked by the technological gizmos used to do science. They think the giant S&M dungeons of tokomaks and synchro-cyclotrons are science. Those aren’t science; they’re tools. The end product; the insights into nature -that is what is important. Professors Ryabko and Reznikova did something a kid could understand the implications of, but no kid could actually do. The fact that they did it at all indicates they have the child-like curiosity and love for nature that is the true spirit of scientific enquiry.

https://scottlocklin.wordpress.com/2013/07/02/on-the-empire-of-the-ants/

Into The Deep : Sixty-Four Days

pronunciationbook, numbers

The Story So Far 77: “Something is going to happen in 77 days.” 76: “I’ve been trying to tell you something for 1,183 days.” 75: “I’m awake now. Things are clearing up. I’m not saying the words anymore.” 74: “I’ve got a minute, let me tell you what I think is going on.” 73: “Tension between the districts has spiked in the last few months.” 72: “You can see it in the markets. Everyone’s ready for a storm.” 71: “They’re singing a new song in the streets of the zone.” 70: “I have plenty of information to keep me company.” 69: “No one is ready. He watches the market.” 68: “I’m not talking about a disaster, I’m talking about a love triangle.” 67: “We fell into the jungle for a summer of dollar/duller crime.” 66: “We were young heroes, gorgeous liars.” 65: “Turn off the lights and drink a cold glass of water.” 64: “No one is singing, everyday’s the same.”

http://intothedeep77.blogspot.co.uk/2013/07/sixty-four-days.html

Into The Deep : Theories

pronunciationbook, numbers, 77 days

As you can see the theories regarding PB are very varied but in other ways connected to each other. The theories that have stood out to me the most out of all of them is the theory of a larger Snowden conspiracy and some sort of long planned attack, both of which could be incredibly important as well as damaging. References to video games have also been made along the way in a number of videos which I will also cover later. As well as this I will write another post later on the Countdown Site as a whole, and it’s connections to PB and the rumoured “Elixir of Life”.

http://intothedeep77.blogspot.co.uk/2013/07/theories.html

Three Seconds: Poems, Cubes and the Brain

time, perception, medecine, neurophysiology, Jalees Rehman, Ernst Pöppel

The central, unifying theme of the institute was time. Not physical time, but biological and psychological time. How does our brain perceive physical time? What is the structure of perceived time? What regulates biological oscillations in humans, animals and even algae? Can environmental cues modify temporal perception? The close proximity of so many disciplines made for fascinating coffee-break discussions, forcing us to re-evaluate our own research findings in the light of the discoveries made in neighboring labs and inspired us to become more creative in our experimental design.

http://www.3quarksdaily.com/3quarksdaily/2013/07/three-seconds-poems-cubes-and-the-brain.html#more

Three Modes of Knowing

knowledge, explicit knowledge, tacit knowledge, episodic knowledge, epistemology, Ernst Poeppel

Human knowledge expresses itself in three different modes, i.e. as explicit, semantic or verbal knowledge, as implicit, tacit or intuitive knowledge, and as visual, pictorial or episodic knowledge. To refer to knowledge only as „explicit knowledge“ would neglect the other modes of knowledge that are of equal importance for higher cognition. Unifying frames of the different modes of knowledge are the aesthetiic principle on a formal level and the mimetic principle on the level of reference.

http://www.ernst-poeppel.de/

“Jason D. Padgett is a number theorist with Acquired Savant Syndrome. The beauty of numbers and their connection to the pure…

theautologicalmetaphor:

“Jason D. Padgett is a number theorist with Acquired Savant Syndrome. The beauty of numbers and their connection to the pure geometry of space time and the universe is shown in his fractal diagrams. He is currently studying how all fractals arise from limits and how E=MC2 is itself a fractal. His drawing of E=MC^2 is based on the structure of space time at the quantum level and is based on the concept that there is a physical limit to observation which is the Planck length. It shows how at the smallest level, the structure of space time is a fractal. All are HAND DRAWN using only a pencil, ruler and compass. "

Bruce Sterling: “From Beyond the Coming Age of Networked Matter,” a short story

bruce sterling, fiction, networked matter, eldridtch horrors, spacetime, bees, dark matter, dark e

Then from some dreadful tagged spot in geolocative extradimensionality came a seething, writhing cavalcade of immaterial shapes. These were the ghastly, tentacular exudations of a Dark Energy force in the universe—the multiplex arms of a face-sucking vampire squid, the dark lord of the mayhem around us that withered every mortal thing it could touch.

http://boingboing.net/2013/07/16/bruce-sterling-from-beyond.html

There was probably something more to this account than just someone being arty on Soundcloud…

“There was probably something more to this account than just someone being arty on Soundcloud, and it clearly had something to do with experimenting with some deeper-level synthesis software… But so fragmentary and surreal were the leavings on the page that it even crossed my mind that an artificial intelligence of some kind might be wholly or partly behind it, an unpersuasive spambot gone amok like the celebrated Twitter account @horse_ebooks. Perhaps assuming someone is a spambot is the 21st century equivalent of assuming, as in Jandek’s case, that someone has a mental illness.”

–My favourite musicologistAdam Harper writing forElectronic Beatsmentions the emergence of bot-like Soundcloud accounts, and the mystery and aesthetic appreciation of that approach to making and sharing music. In this quote he is referring to the music ofPepsi 7up. (viaalgopop)

As the German evolutionist Gustav Jager argued in 1869, religion can be seen as “a weapon in the [Darwinian] struggle for…

“As the German evolutionist Gustav Jager argued in 1869, religion can be seen as “a weapon in the [Darwinian] struggle for survival.” As Jager’s language suggests, none of this should be construed to suggest that religion is—on the whole—a good thing. There are good things about religion, including the way its ethical teachings bind people into more harmonious collectives. But there is an obvious dark side to religion, too: the way it is so readily weaponized. Religion draws coreligionists together, and it drives those of different faiths apart.”

– Gottschall, Jonathan. The Storytelling Animal, How Stories Make Us Human. New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2012. (viacarvalhais)

Three trends that will create demand for an Unconditional Basic Income

Simulacrum, economics, living wage, basic income, Unconditional Basic Income

The digitization of our economy will bring with it a new generation of radical economic ideologies, of which Bitcoin is arguably the first. For those with assets, technological savvy, and a sense of adventure, the state is the enemy and a cryptographic currency is the solution. But for those more focused on the decline of the middle classes, the collapse of the entry-level jobs market, and the rise of free culture, the state is an ally, and the solution might look something like an unconditional basic income. Before I explain why this concept is going to be creeping into the political debate across the developed world, let me spell out how a system like this would look

http://simulacrum.cc/2013/07/10/three-trends-that-push-us-towards-an-unconditional-basic-income/

On Machiavelli

Machiavelli, politics, history, morality, italy, 1400s

The conventional view of Machiavelli is as an unscrupulous amoralist, for whom, as Alasdair MacIntyre argues, the only ends of social and political life ‘are the attainment and holding down of power’. Moral rules are merely ‘technical rules about the means to these ends’. Because Machiavelli viewed all humans as inherently corrupt, so ‘we may break a promise or violate an agreement at any time if it is in our own interests to do so, for the presumption is that, since all men are wicked, those with whom you have contracted may at any time break their promises if it is in their interest.’

https://kenanmalik.wordpress.com/2013/04/17/on-machiavelli/

Rupees in your pocket

LMD, basic wage, unconditional income, India, UNICEF, poverty, SEWA

A new pilot study at Panthbadodiya could significantly change living conditions for the poor, and India’s approach to fighting poverty. The village is taking part in the Madhya Pradesh Unconditional Cash Transfer Initiative, a project run by the Self Employed Women’s Association (Sewa; a trade union that has defended the rights of women with low incomes in India for 40 years), with subsidies from Unicef (United Nations Children’s Fund) India. The research director, Sarath Dewala, explained: “The experiment involves giving individuals a small sum of money, at regular intervals, as a supplement to all other forms of income, and observing what happens to their families if this sum is given unconditionally.”

http://mondediplo.com/2013/05/04income

Toiling in the data-mines: what data exploration feels like

data, code, material exploration, tom armitage, BERG

There are several aspects to this post. Partly, it’s about what material explorations look like when performed with data. Partly, it’s about the role of code as a tool to explore data. We don’t write about code much on the site, because we’re mainly interested in the products we produce and the invention involved in them, but it’s sometimes important to talk about processes and tools, and this, I feel, is one of those times. At the same time, as well as talking about technical matters, I wanted to talk a little about what the act of doing this work feels like.

http://berglondon.com/blog/2009/10/23/toiling-in-the-data-mines-what-data-exploration-feels-like/

How the US Turned Three Pacifists into Violent Terrorists

In just ten months, the United States managed to transform an 82 year-old Catholic nun and two pacifists from non-violent anti-nuclear peace protestors accused of misdemeanor trespassing into federal felons convicted of violent crimes of terrorism. Now in jail awaiting sentencing for their acts at an Oak Ridge, TN nuclear weapons production facility, their story should chill every person concerned about dissent in the US.

https://www.commondreams.org/view/2013/05/15–7

Lockdown

internet, media, RSS, web 2.0, walled garden 2.0, open

RSS represents the antithesis of this new world: it’s completely open, decentralized, and owned by nobody, just like the web itself. It allows anyone, large or small, to build something new and disrupt anyone else they’d like because nobody has to fly six salespeople out first to work out a partnership with anyone else’s salespeople. That world formed the web’s foundations — without that world to build on, Google, Facebook, and Twitter couldn’t exist. But they’ve now grown so large that everything from that web-native world is now a threat to them, and they want to shut it down. “Sunset” it. “Clean it up.” “Retire” it. Get it out of the way so they can get even bigger and build even bigger proprietary barriers to anyone trying to claim their territory.

http://www.marco.org/2013/07/03/lockdown

Proxy voting platforms for liquid democracy

democracy, voting, delegation, representation, delegative democracy, liquid democracy

Citizen deliberative councils, participatory budgeting, the Occupy movement’s consensus decision making: These are all experiments in more participatory forms of democracy. Technologies can support these types of experiments, from the keypad and CoVision technologies used by AmericaSpeaks in deliberative dialog and polling to the geographic information systems used by the Madrona platform for participatory spatial planning. With the rise of the German Pirate Party (see NYT and NPR reports), so-called liquid democracy platforms for proxy voting (or delegated voting) are finally getting some real-world testing and development.

http://www.solvingforpattern.org/2012/10/02/proxy-voting-liquid-democracy/

The Tyranny of Stuctureless

struture, Stucturelessness, group dynamics, groups, people, collaoration, hierarchy

Contrary to what we would like to believe, there is no such thing as a structureless group. Any group of people of whatever nature that comes together for any length of time for any purpose will inevitably structure itself in some fashion. The structure may be flexible; it may vary over time; it may evenly or unevenly distribute tasks, power and resources over the members of the group. But it will be formed regardless of the abilities, personalities, or intentions of the people involved. The very fact that we are individuals, with different talents, predispositions, and backgrounds makes this inevitable. Only if we refused to relate or interact on any basis whatsoever could we approximate structurelessness – and that is not the nature of a human group.

http://www.jofreeman.com/joreen/tyranny.htm

Particle Decelerator: And everything is possible again

2013, scifoo, review, HH, science, unconference

SciFoo is the brainchild of O'Reilly, Nature publishing group and Google. It takes place every year at Google’s Mountain View headquarters in Silicon Valley, California, where around 200 of the world’s preeminent scientists gather together. Nobel Laureates rub shoulders with rocket engineers, roboticists, angel investors, science writers and the odd science celebrity.

http://decelerator.blogspot.co.uk/2013/07/and-everything-is-possible-again.html

The programming languages behind “the mother of all demos” | Lambda the Ultimate

engelbart, programming, 1968, tree-meta, SNOBOL, LSD, SPL, augment, NLS

To commemorate this famous event, commonly known as the mother of all demos, SRI held a 40th anniversary celebration at Stanford today. As a small tribute to the innovative ideas that made up the demo, it is befitting to mention some of the programming languages that were used by Engelbart’s team. A few were mentioned in passing in the event today, making me realize that they are not that widely known.

http://lambda-the-ultimate.org/node/3122

Algorithmic border control. I used the e-passport gate at Gatwick airport for the first time last week. I wish I had taken a…

algopop:

Algorithmic border control. I used the e-passport gate at Gatwick airport for the first time last week. I wish I had taken a selfie as I watched my face being automatically detected and checked against my biometric data and photo found on my passport. As a substitute I’ve found this product shot of a portable vision-box, an automated mobile unit for “Citizen enrolment in large territories with dispersed populations, enhanced security checks at any location (fiscalisation operations, field clearance, road blocks, prison inspections, work and residence permit follow ups) or even contingent border controls.”