Medieval Recipe Day - Let's Make a Syllabub!

So, three things:

Number One: I'm posting this one mostly because I like the name.
Number Two: Strictly speaking, this is more of a Renaissance England than a Medieval recipe - or at least, our best records on syllabub "only" go back about five hundred years.
Number Three: You can find dozens of recipes for syllabubs. This is just one.

Syllabubs were a kind of custardy, frothy desert, served cold (or cool - this is pre-refrigeration). They were also a combination of ingredients that not too many modern cooks might think of...so if you actually try to make it, let me know how it tastes!

Take:

One Quart of Cream
One Pint and an half of Wine or Sack
Juice of two lemons with some of the peel
A branch of rosemary.

Sweeten it very well, then put a little of this liquor, and a little of the cream into a basin, beat them till it froths, put that froth into the syllabub pot, and so do till the cream and wine be done, then cover it close, and set it in a cool cellar for twelve hours, then eat it.(from Hannah Wooley, The Queen-Like Closet, London 1649)

War Machines!

If you're obsessed with ancient ways of killing people and destroying cities, then Happy Holidays! The good folks at the British Library have a present for you: They've digitized Burney MS 69, a collection of Greek manuscripts on siege engines and other modes of making war. The documents range from Hellenistic engineers to Byzantine generals. Of course, they're written in Greek of various ages (so sucks to be me and probably you) but they also include illustrations. He-he.

This is part of a larger digitization of Byzantine manuscripts that include sermons, hymns, prayerbooks, letters, and an "Historium Romanae" by Appian.

For All My Fellow Grammar Snobs, Copy Editors, and Punctuationists Out There-

THIS, from Danielle Corsetto and Girls With Slingshots.

Economic Warfare Goes "Whimper"

About four years ago, I did some writing (badly) for a small investment firm that was well...obsessed...by two things: natural resources (gold, oil, etc.) and China. Then along came a "crisis" that seemed to be tailor-made for it: China declared an embargo against Japan of REE - rare earth elements. Rare earths like neodymium and dysprosium are powerful ingredients in room-temperature super magnets, rechargeable batteries, wind power generators, hybrid cars, smartphones, and dozens of other high-tech, almost indispensable products, and at the time China controlled more than 90% of the global supply.

The embargo caused an epic freakout among news analysts and the good folks at Anonymous Investments. But in the end it turned out to be a dud. io9.com has an interesting article about why, and it gives a little insight into how a healthy market can correct itself.

Should I Work for Free or Not?

For all my friends who are freelance designers, artists, writers, "creatives" - this flowchart is hilarious, and heartbreakingly accurate.

http://www.adweek.com/adfreak/flowchart-when-you-should-and-when-you-shouldnt-work-free-160981

Isaac Asimov, DARPA, and Creativity - WHERE DO THEY GET THEIR IDEAS?

So you all know about our Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency,
or DARPA, right? It contributed to (among other things) the genesis of the Internet, GPS, time-sharing, and hypermedia. These days it's examining things like adaptive vehicles, protein design, and converting brain waves into speech.

And it turns out that in 1959, DARPA hired ISAAC ASIMOV to think about creativity for them! And the paper he wrote is now available!

Here it is.

The Place That No Longer Exists

When I was young - I don't remember how young, but I suspect it was before my family left Brooklyn - I visited the Twin Towers and went to the top. I remember floor-to-ceiling windows, without rails - nothing to get between you and the view. I wasn't fond of heights, and it took an effort of will to get close to the glass. I saw everything: Wall Street; the Jersey side, with its docks and its line of (then) rundown towns - Weehawken, Hoboken, Jersey City, Bayonne; the harbor and the islands - Ellis, Liberty, Governors, Staten Island; everything so far down and away that it actually looked curved, which is probably my memory playing tricks on me. I also remember how cold it was. The plaza around the towers was barren, straight-up early '70s Brutalist, so there was nothing to stop the Hudson hawk from stinging your cheeks and bringing tears to your eyes. I remember thinking that the place was pretty desolate. I was impressed by the size and the height, but not much else. Much later, I heard that a successful neighborhood had been bulldozed to make room for the WTC, much as had been done for Lincoln Center some years earlier.

I'm now a member of a weird, accidental fraternity, one of Kurt Vonnegut's granfaloons – the group of people who have been to a particular place that no longer exists. The group is filled with millions of bond traders, Japanese tourists, janitors, IT professionals…and inside it is a smaller group: the people who were there that day, and the first responders who tried to save them. The terrorist who killed them has been dumped like garbage into the sea, but their names are on hallowed ground.

Want To Help Make a Hullabaloo?

Hullabaloo is an animated short project looking for funding on IndieGoGo. Its creators are former Disney animators who want to use genuine old-school 2D line-drawing instead of the rubbery computer-generated "uncanny valley" stuff (that I loathe and) that has come to dominate the animation industry. (Think Beauty and the Beast vs. Toy Story.) The story - hold on to your bowlers and millinery - is a steampunk Girl's Own Adventure, sort of Veronica Mars meets Jules Verne by way of Girl Genius and Marvel Comics.

In short, this sounds like a worthy project...and unlike Zach Braff, these folks won't make a million off this, and are willing to hand out producer credit.

Don't Bother Talking to Your Dog!

It seems that they like to be petted, but don't really care if you say "good doggie."

The Internet Is Orange

So it seems that orange really IS the new black...at least as far as the Internet is concerned.