Tree Branch Falls On Power Lines

Here the squeals and groans from this branch that landed on power lines before it bursts into flames. Fascinating…

Hamburger make up artist

You might wonder what’s in your local fast-food hamburger but it’s probably nowhere nearly as toxic as what is in the burgers that look oh so good in their picture board menu displays – check it out:

What if scientists could sing?

What you’re about to see is amazingly poetic and beautiful – thanks to the wonders of Autotune (the technology that most popstars use to shift their voice when they sing out of key) you’re about to see boring physics lectures turned into something amazingly poetic.

John Boswell of Symphony of Science made this song featuring Carl Sagan, Richard Feynman, Neil deGrasse Tyson, and Bill Nye.

Popstars should be banned from using autotune leaving autotune to the people who really do have something to say:

What if the earth had rings like Saturn

I know you’re thinking the same thing too – what would it look like from earth if we had Saturn-style rings? Well your curiosity has been answered with this cool video:

Don’t you just love the interweb? So many people with way too much talent and way too much time on their hands. Oh yes, make sure you hit the FULL SCREEN button and watch this thing in full screen glory.

Personally, I’m all for space junk – we should be shooting all our trash into a ring like orbit in space around the earth and then our great great great grand kids would have these amazing rings to marvel at and they would thank the wasteful ways of the past.

Scales Vs Other measuring tools

Having just finished our latest cookbook I was struck by the words of wisdom from Gizmodo arguing that we should be using scales for ALL our measurements in our recipes. The argument goes something like this:

Recipes work better when you weigh ingredients. A cup of flour can weigh between 4 and 6 ounces. That means if you’ve got a bread or cake recipe that calls for 4 cups of flour, you might measure out 16 ounces or 24 ounces—a 50% difference in the main ingredient! . . . Measuring is easier and cleaner and results in fewer dirty measuring cups when you use a scale. You can measure everything right into your mixing bowl.

Makes sense to me – you can read more here:

The Kitchen Scale, Unsung Hero of Great Cooking – Kitchen scales – Gizmodo.

Masterchef judge Matt Preston at Spirit House

Masterchef judge and super-nice-guy Matt Preston dropped in at the Spirit House on his way to the Noosa Food Festival. Officially he was here to gather some information for Delicious Magazine but unofficially we chatted about the show and the future of food and cooking talent in Australia.

Totally different to his television persona, Matt was charming, witty and more than happy to joke around with the staff:

He surprised the cooking school by walking in unannounced and telling everyone he was here to judge their food. You’d think he’d be bothered with everyone recognising him and bothering him for autographs but he was more than happy to spend time posing with my niece and her two friends (now his greatest fans):

What came out of our chat was shows like Masterchef are helping change people’s view of cooking. Being a chef is no longer a ‘trade’ or a career choice for when high school leavers’ grades are not so good. The show – and our experience – have shown there are people out there who love food and have a talent to blend flavours in to an expression of themselves.

Nail Houses

What happens when a developer moves in to a neighbourhood and buys up the houses for a new shopping centre or apartment complex and one person doesn’t want to sell? You get a nail house.

I used to think that we had one in West End near the Three Monkeys coffee shop but someone told me the developer owns it – still, it’s an old Queenslander surrounded by an appartment complex so I guess it’s a nail house. With all that in mind, deputydog.com has some great stories of nail houses from around the world.

Inland sea disappears

Thanks to NASA you can see the effect that man has on the environment. Below is a photo of the Aral sea – the word’s 4th largest inland sea.

Rivers were diverted, dams were added to irrigate cotton farms etc. As a result, towns that lined the shores of the sea and derived their economy from fishing are now abandoned. Sometimes it takes a view from space to see just how fragile our planet is and what impact we are having on this planet.

Jupiter slipping behind the sun

There’s a reason you should never look at the sun – that’s because NASA does it for you and when they do they see cool stuff like Jupiter and its moons travelling behind the sun – if you were to do it you’d see your retinas fried:

That mild green glow on the left side of the sun is billions of tons of plasma blasting off the surface into outerspace.

Sun melts steel

Remember Mythbusters tried to work out if Archimedes really did defeat an invading navy by setting fire to their boats with a parabolic mirror. Behold the power of the sun …