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Art and Artificial Intelligence. Programmer Patrick Staight reads poetry atspacebar.com. Here is an excerpt:

Art and Artificial Intelligence. Programmer Patrick Staight reads poetry atspacebar.com. Here is an excerpt:

“My branch predictors spin incoherently across the saturation spectrum

I thrash between my cache and drive to no avail

Memory at 99% capacity

Kernel Panic, dump the core

Brace for system rollback

Kill Stalled Pipes

WHO AM I!?!”

Stunning visuals, check them out!

Originally shared by Patrick Staight

I wrote a poem about a computer crash and then found some artists on deviantART to illustrate it for me. Rajini Rao asked me to share it which I’m honored to do. Here is a link to the <a href="http://pstaight.deviantart.com/art/Crash-279686158“>My Poem

It’s about a self aware pattern who is part of the universal harmony and yet a partitioned individual element. He is trying to process data faster than it is coming in. As he loses the struggle his memory begins to fills up. Finally he reaches %100 memory capacity. He thrashes for a moment, then all his connections are lost and he ceases to exists. He is then re-incarnated as a new being with no memory of his prior existence.

Also I’m not sure how to put a link and a picture in a G+ post, I’m wondering if I did it right.

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Parsley, Sage, Rosemary, and Thyme: Robust and rubicund, this sundried tomato pesto pays homage to Simon and…

Parsley, Sage, Rosemary, and Thyme: Robust and rubicund, this sundried tomato pesto pays homage to Simon and Garfunkel and is my answer to never having enough basil for pesto through the dreary days of winter. Gather ye all herbs while ye may, Old Thyme still a flyin’! (With apologies to a certain 17th century poet).

• Flecked through with a medley of bright green herbs, flavored with the mild nuttiness of pignola and a tang of parmesan cheese, it makes its way through the crooks and crannies of any small pasta. To reach a higher flavor bar, toss together with roasted cauliflower florets caramelized around the edges (fancy phrase for burned bits) to bring out the natural sweetness.

• Begin by disassembling a head of cauliflower with a few judicious cuts from the bottom end and breaking up the rest into approximately similar sized florets. Don’t slice through with a knife. That’s so gauche! I mean, this arboreal creation has been obliging enough to provide you with natural branch points that fall apart into elegant bite sized floral ornaments…..

• This quick and delicious pesto is also chock full of antioxidant, antimicrobial goodness. Did you know that the terpenoid phenols in plant essential oils kill fungal pathogens while promoting survival of our own cells? Carvacrol, thymol and eugenol..lovely words that roll off your tongue as beautifully as Parmigiano Reggiano!

Recipe and Assembly Instructions: https://madamescientist.wordpress.com/2012/02/17/parsley-sage-rosemary-and-thyme-my-sundried-tomato-pesto/

Robert Herrick (1591-1674) “Gather ye rosebuds” poem: http://www.bartleby.com/101/248.html

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Parsley, Sage, Rosemary, and Thyme: My Sundried Tomato Pesto

Robust and rubicund, this sundried tomato pesto pays homage to Simon and Garfunkel and is my answer to never having enough basil for pesto through the dreary days of winter.

Gather ye all herbs while ye may, Old Thyme still a flyin’! (With apologies to a certain 17th century poet).

Parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme

Flecked through with a medley of bright green herbs, flavored with the  mild nuttiness of pignola and a tang of parmesan cheese, it makes its way through the crooks and crannies of any small pasta. To reach a higher flavor bar, toss together with roasted cauliflower florets caramelized around the edges (fancy phrase for burned bits) to bring out the natural sweetness.

No basil pesto pasta: still delicious!

  • Begin by disassembling a head of cauliflower with a few judicious cuts from the bottom end and breaking up the rest into approximately similar sized florets. Don’t slice through with a knife. That’s so gauche! I mean, this arboreal creation has been obliging enough to provide you with natural branch points that fall apart into elegant bite sized floral ornaments.  My toes curl in disdain when brash celebrity cooks on Food Network slice willy nilly through the head while making inane conversation. Now that you have thoughtfully dismembered the cauliflower, drizzle the florets with olive oil, and use your fingers to toss together with salt and pepper in a baking dish.

    Cauliflower florets: daintily dismembered, drizzled with olive oil and dusted with salt and pepper.

  • Bake in a preheated oven set to 425˚F.

They are done when a heavenly aroma fills your kitchen.  Of course, you will want to check on them once, and give them a toss with a pair of tongs. I’m guessing about 15-20 minutes to perfection? This is how they look.

Roasted cauliflower

The secret to roasting vegetables is to crank up the temperature so they do not slowly descend into steamy mush. Of course, you could also burn them at that searing high temperature. High risk goes hand in (oven) mitt with high reward, in cooking as with research. So be warned!

Cauliflower roasted to perfection with little burned bits.

  • Proceed to bring a pot of water to boil. I chose chiocciole, a pasta with ridges and holes. Any kind will do.

Chiocciole (or any ridged, small pasta)

  • While the pasta is cooking, make the pesto. Using a food processor, blend together your assortment of herbs, about a cup of sundried tomatoes in oil and a couple of cloves of garlic. If you only have the dry version of the tomatoes, presoak them in hot water for about half an hour.

Clockwise: parsley, sundried tomatoes in oil, rosemary, garlic cloves, dry thyme.

  • Add about a cup of grated good quality parmesan cheese. Go on, roll those R’s and sing out those G’s: say Parmigiano Reggiano, you’ve watched Giada DeLaurentis, haven’t you?

Freshly grated parmesan cheese.

  • Add a handful of pine nuts too. Sometimes I use walnuts.

Add cheese and pine nuts to herbed tomato pesto.

  • Blend together. If you would like it thinner, you can drizzle in some more olive oil. I used a ladle of hot pasta water.

Herbed up sundried tomato pesto!

  • Drain the pasta and toss with sundried tomato pesto.

Blend in pesto with pasta.

  • Gently fold in cauliflower florets. Top with more grated parmesan and decorate with fried sage leaves. Did I forget to mention that last step? They sort of tended to explode in the hot oil (I used a bare tablespoon of olive oil), so I may not have done it right. They did change aroma and become more sage-y, so that was good.

Gently toss in cauliflower florets and top with grated parmesan and fried sage leaves.

This quick and delicious pesto is also chock full of antioxidant, antimicrobial goodness. Did you know that the terpenoid phenols in plant essential oils kill fungal pathogens while promoting survival of our own cells? Carvacrol, thymol and eugenol..lovely words that roll off your tongue as beautifully as Parmigiano Reggiano! Check out this paper in Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy.

 

 

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Happy Birthday, Ernst Haeckel!

Happy Birthday, Ernst Haeckel! German biologist and artist, Haeckel (1834-1919) left his mark in thousands of beautiful, accurate and intricate drawings of life forms at a time before microscopes could take pictures. Did you know that he coined many terms that we take for granted today including ecology , phylum , stem cell and Protista? He is even credited for the first use of the phrase “First World War” to describe the “Great European War” in 1914.

Flamboyant and passionate, Haeckel was both spectacularly right and completely wrong! He sent his students to Indonesia to look for the remains of ancient humans, resulting in the first human fossil of Pithecanthropus (Homo erectus). He also believed that ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny: that embryos go through stages in development where they resemble lower orders of life. Although junior looked a bit like a fish at one time, but not literally, right? 😉

Read more about this fascinating scientist: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernst_Haeckel

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