Developages - Development and Technology Blog

German airmen have been catching some heat for making Blotwurst sausages using human blood from compatriots. Everything was fine until some fellow soldiers started to complain:

The incident only came to the attention of senior officers after one of their fellow soldiers reported the fact that he had been asked to donate some blood for the scheme.
The man is reported to have said: “I have been asked to give blood for sausage-making and I want to know if this is against regulations.”

This never would have happened in the Carpathian Air Force.

Airmen made sausages from their blood [Telegraph.co.uk via Danger Room]

Share This

Original post by Joel

“Not Martha” made these stunning bacon cups by cooking bacon around a muffin tin. My mouth is watering just looking at them. Imagine how good they’d be without the garnish?

For the next step, someone needs to make these watertight and make bacon rocks glasses.

bacon cups [NotMartha.org via Serious Eats]

Share This

Original post by Joel

2.0 Somethings, desperate for the dozens of dozens of readers who frequent Dethroner every day, passed on this alert:

Though we just got back from our most recent culinary adventure, the 2.0somethings crew is already gearing up for our spring break plans: The First Annual Blue Ribbon Bacon Festival in Des Moines, Iowa. The festival will be held at the High Life Lounge on March 1. According to The Register, “PBR will be offered for $1 a draw, paired with succulent dishes such as bacon-wrapped shrimp, little bacon cheeseburgers, a bacon-wrapped jalapeno and tater tot - all the gourmet bacon foods.” The festival will also include bacon-flavored craft beers, a “Blazin’ Bacon Bloody Mary, served with a slice of peppered bacon,” and maple bacon cheesecake. No word on whether EMTs will be standing by to provide on-the-spot bypasses.

Blue Ribbon Bacon Festival [2.0somethings.com]

Share This

Original post by Joel

There’s nothing wrong with eating squirrel (although it’s some of my least favorite game meat). But that doesn’t make the soft focus cooking of Heidi “The Huntress” Wilson, star of an old Outdoor Channel television show, any less disturbing. I know she’s just trying to make eating squirrel seem like a normal American pastime, but that name doesn’t help.

[via Serious Eats]

Share This

Original post by Joel

Baconpig. Zenith of mankind’s porcine proclivity or just gross? You be the judge. Don’t miss the Pig Butchering Guide in T-shirt form.

Share This

Original post by Randy

Two interesting pieces came on my radar this weekend. I’m not about to give up meat entirely, but it has become less and less of my diet of late, and after my birthday early next month, I’m probably going to end up cutting it out almost entirely for a couple of months while I work to get my weight down under 200. (And calorie counting, etc. I’m not just cutting meat out because I think that’ll make me instantly slimmer.)

The first, from the Times, a piece by Mark Bittman about the high cost of meat production:

Americans eat about the same amount of meat as we have for some time, about eight ounces a day, roughly twice the global average. At about 5 percent of the world’s population, we “process” (that is, grow and kill) nearly 10 billion animals a year, more than 15 percent of the world’s total.

Growing meat (it’s hard to use the word “raising” when applied to animals in factory farms) uses so many resources that it’s a challenge to enumerate them all. But consider: an estimated 30 percent of the earth’s ice-free land is directly or indirectly involved in livestock production, according to the United Nation’s Food and Agriculture Organization, which also estimates that livestock production generates nearly a fifth of the world’s greenhouse gases — more than transportation.

The second, this profile in the Wall Street Journal of Kansas City tight-end Tony Gonzalez, who has gone from a high-meat diet to a vegan one:

Three weeks later, he walked into the weight room at the Chiefs’ training facility and got a shock. The 100-pound dumbbells he used to easily throw around felt like lead weights. “I was scared out of my mind,” he says. Standing on the scale, he learned he’d lost 10 pounds.

Mr. Gonzalez considered scrapping the diet altogether and returning to the Chiefs’ standard gut-busting menu. First, though, he called Mr. Campbell, who put him in touch with Jon Hinds, himself a vegan and the former strength coach for the Los Angeles Clippers basketball team. Mr. Hinds suggested plant foods with more protein.

Share This

Original post by Joel

I make a damn fine pie, but my crusts have always been a bit shit. Now I’ve got a new recipe in the wings, courtesy of Cooks Illustrated, which while untested seems brilliantly obvious: add some booze.

The trick to this pie crust is the inclusion of vodka. Eighty-proof vodka, which is 60 percent water and 40 percent alcohol, adds moistness to the dough without aiding in gluten formation since gluten doesn’t form in ethanol. Although the recipe includes 8 tablespoons of liquid, the alcohol vaporizes during baking, resulting in a tender crust that only contains 6 1/2 tablespoons of water. Because of the extra liquid, the dough will be moister than most standard pie doughs and will require up to 1/4 cup more flour.

I wonder how this would work with bourbon? I could see the bourbon taste in an apple pie being amazing.

Cook’s Illustrated’s Foolproof Pie Dough [SeriousEats.com]

Share This

Original post by Joel

It’s that time of year when we get to share with you those wonderful tokens of tech love, or rather love for the techie in your life. If you are the partner of a Wii addict, I recommend purchasing this year’s hottest confection–the chocolate Mii.

Chocolate Mii is crafted to look like a miniature Wii, bolding displaying the message “Wii belong together, you and Mii.” Your sweetie will open the Wii-shaped box to uncover two chocolate Miis with red-hot hearts on their shirts. There are boy-girl, girl-girl, and boy-boy combinations, so your love can be shared with your love - or even with your best friend.

Chocolate Miis are each made with 2.1 oz (think king-sized candy bar) of gourmet milk, dark, or while chocolate from Omaha Chocolate Company.

Watch the v-log about these treats here.

Price: $14.95, pick your combination and order at Paul Papa Designs here.

Original post by Popgadget: Personal Tech for Women

Filed under: CES, Displays, HDTV

Samsung can join Hitachi while crying into their sake as its 52-inch “thinnest non-OLED HDTV ever” is around 4x as thick as Pioneer’s 9mm heroin-chic Kuro. Take heart Sammy, because your 82-inch — and btw, what is with the 82-inch obsession (2005 & 2006 CES), we need to talk about that — Quad HD display is like looking out of a window, if we had bigger and cleaner windows. Check out the gallery to see what we mean.

Permalink | Email this | Comments

Original post by Richard Lawler

Filed under: CES, Displays, Features

We promise this post isn’t just a cheap excuse to drool over Halo 3 — no, no — this post is a cheap excuse to drool over Crysis running at native resolution. Westinghouse got smarter this year and made its two Quad HD LCDs on display a more prominent attraction in the booth, showing off 47-inch and 56-inch models. For those who haven’t been keeping score, the 56-inch display is running at 3840 x 2160 Quad Full HD resolution (think 8.3 million pixels is enough for ya?) — its little brother runs at 2560 x 1440 Quad HD and 3.7 million pixels. Both of these units are going to be released this year in Q2 (”March or April”), but you’ll have to part with $10,000 to pick up the 47-inch and a whopping $50k to take home the 56-inch. The rep we spoke with mentioned they obviously weren’t targeting consumers with these things so much as engineers, architects, visual imaging and editing professionals and production studios, and medical and geological professionals, as well as mining companies who’ve shown interest in the technology. We fully concede there’s no rational way to justify shelling out 50 grand for one of these things but damn, it doesn’t stop us from wanting one at Engadget HQ.

Permalink | Email this | Comments

Original post by Barb Dybwad

Filed under: Handhelds, Peripherals, Portable Audio, Portable Video

Chalk this one up as a yet-to-be substantiated rumor, but based on an interesting video clip surfacing on YouTube (we know…), Samsung’s Y2-P2 could be getting a swank new peripheral. The YS-MC1 cradle would apparently snap onto the bottom of the already svelte P2 and add 802.11g WiFi, an FM transmitter, microSD expansion slot and a built-in mono speaker. ‘Course, we realize just how fake the concepts on the video look, but it’s not like Samsung hasn’t doled out specialized docks for its DAPs in the past. And hey, we’re all still wondering what may go along with the multiple waves of firmware updates slated to land next year. Click on through to see the video yourself.

[Via DAPReview, thanks KC Kim]

Continue reading Samsung readying YS-MC1 dock for Y2-P2?

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

Original post by Darren Murph

Filed under: Handhelds, Peripherals, Portable Audio, Portable Video

Chalk this one up as a yet-to-be substantiated rumor, but based on an interesting video clip surfacing on YouTube (we know…), Samsung’s YP-P2 could be getting a swank new peripheral. The YS-MC1 cradle would apparently snap onto the bottom of the already svelte P2 and add 802.11g WiFi, an FM transmitter, microSD expansion slot and a built-in mono speaker. ‘Course, we realize just how fake the concepts on the video look, but it’s not like Samsung hasn’t doled out specialized docks for its DAPs in the past. And hey, we’re all still wondering what may go along with the multiple waves of firmware updates slated to land next year. Click on through to see the video yourself.

[Via DAPReview, thanks KC Kim]

Continue reading Samsung readying YS-MC1 dock for YP-P2?

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

Original post by Darren Murph

8×8, provider of Packet8 broadband VoIP services, today announced the launch of Packet8 MobileTalk - a mobile calling service that utilizes a downloadable software application that can currently reside on any Windows, Palm or Symbian based mobile phone.

It connects the calls from the mobile phone to the Packet8 digital VoIP network to save on costs.

Packet8 MobileTalk users can dial calls directly and natively from their mobile handset, contact list or speed dial directory. Once the destination number is dialed or selected, the Packet8 MobileTalk software application identifies the international prefix being called and redirects the call to a local Packet8 network access number for terminating the last leg.

You might say Packet8 MobileTalk is similar to Truphone, except Truphone routes the call over the data connection, so the QoS is more affected. You might compare Packet8 MobileTalk with JAJAH, which offers the JAJAH Mobile Plugin, a softphone application that like MobileTalk works with Symbian phones. JAJAH Mobile Plugin, like Packet8 MobileTalk routes the call over the voice channel. However, JAJAH Mobile Plugin differs in that it only works with Symbian phones right now I believe and not Windows Mobile devices. Still, this is probably the closest comparison and it puts Packet8 in direct competition with JAJAH. Still… it’s hard to compete with JAJAH’s free global calling plan, but I give Packet8 credit for differentiating themselves.

Interestingly, with Packet8 MobileTalk, all calls are carried to the Packet8 network over the subscriber’s existing cellular voice phone service. That is, you don’t need a data plan as the voice is routed directly over the cellular voice channel to Packet8’s servers. In this way, the call quality should be excellent.
 
Importantly, customers do not have to subscribe to other Packet8 VoIP or videophone services in order to sign up for Packet8 MobileTalk, though discounted service fees are offered to existing Packet8 VoIP or MobileTalk subscribers.  There is a one-time $9.99 activation fee for the service and a monthly fee of $9.99 for non-Packet 8 subscribers.  Existing Packet8 VoIP subscribers, including subscribers with one Packet8 MobileTalk account, pay a monthly service fee of $4.99.

You can check out and download the Packet8 MobileTalk here: http://mobiletalk.packet8.net

Sponsored Channels: Call Center Outsourcing Conference Phones Telephone Systems Billing Channel
Advertisements:
Looking for an inexpensive Predictive Dialer?
How bout a Feature-Rich Telephone System?

TrackBack (0)
| Comments (0) | Tag with del.icio.us | VoIP & Gadget Blog | Permalink: Packet8 MobileTalk Launches

Tags: JAJAH, mobile phone, MobileTalk, Packet8, Truphone, VoIP, wireless
Copyright VoIP & Gadgets Blog

Original post by Eric