Saturday, March 7, 2009

The Top Foods People likes and dislikes.


The Top Foods People Love or Hate

Posted Mon, Mar 02, 2009, 3:55 pm PST

Certain foods are as polarizing as hometown sports teams and politics. Here at Serious Eats, we've put together a list of eleven love-or-hate foods. If you love them, be proud. We've included a recipe highlighting each controversial flavor.

1. White Chocolate: The "chocolate" part trips people up. It's really just a sweet confection (no cocoa involved). Moving on from terminology, when good, it's creamy and vanilla-y, but like "normal" chocolate, when bad, it's just waxy calories.
Recipe for white chocolate bark with fresh mint, almonds, and dried berries

2. Cilantro: Soapy, rotten, or just plain vile are popular complaints from cilantro haters. Did you know Julia Child hated the leafy herb? But behavioral neuroscientists would argue that America's food darling had no control. It's all about genetics. Studies have linked liking cilantro to being able to detect the "pleasing" chemicals in the leaf.
Recipe for white beans and cilantro

3. Eggplant: For some, it's an old purple sponge and others, the soft-firm texture is what makes a veggie sandwich or an Italian pasta dish. Raw is never good, but fried, grilled, or roasted (always doused with gobs of olive oil), eggplant deserves another chance. Or, the vegetarian sponge will always make you nauseous -- and the roof of your mouth mysteriously itch.
Recipe for eggplant lamb lavash wrap

4. Coconut: The smell in shampoo and sunblock is one thing. But the sawdust-like shreds of real coconut can mean chewing and chewing forever until you eventually swallow the darn lump. Sprinkled on pies, cakes, and chicken, coconut either adds a mild tropical zing or a vile, never-ending chewing party. That's when it comes out that a lot of coconut haters don't even know about young fresh coconut which is as soft as a Hawaiian baby's bottom.
Recipe for coconut domes

5. Tomato: This one really comes down to texture. Slimy and gritty is never good for the tomato world. The cooked, soft version brings in a few fans. Others are only in it for the vine-picked version during their peak season in August (cut to romantic images of Italian countrysides). Others can only bear them on pizza or completely masked inside ketchup.
Recipe for marinated tomatoes with linguine

6. Anchovies: Cat food or human food? A small whiff can make you seasick or have you loading them on pizza and Caesar salads. Whether fresh or in flat metal cans, the salty little fish has some so obsessed, they'll eat the bones.
Recipe for roasted sardines with bread crumbs, garlic, and mint

7. Black licorice: Even the red licorice-tolerant may draw the line here. Black licorice gum, jelly beans, tea, Good n' Plentys, and Jägermeister—get it out. Along with any herb, like anise or fennel, that resembles the flavor. Out. Lovers say it's an acquired taste, but I think the little kids have it straight here. Not a real candy.
Recipe for baked fennel with prosciutto

8. Stinky cheeses: If this smell came from something else (a shoe or dog), I might take issue, but knowing it's from a dairy gob, growing moldy in a controlled environment, I'm fine with the pungent aroma. When others sniff Gorgonzola or Roquefort, they're convinced that feet or laundry were actually involved.
Recipe for tortellini with Gorgonzola cream sauce

9. Mayo: Whether Hellmann's or even Miracle Whip, does the creamy off-white slime strip the taste off food or magically make anything better? Haters have been told to try it homemade, but for many, this won't make a tuna or egg salad look any less scary.
Recipe for avocado mayonnaise

10. Bell Pepper: To some, all those colorful strips are a mouthful of crisp freshness. To others, they're the backseat driver of vegetables. On a pizza or in pasta, they're supposed to be one of many veggie passengers, but no. The bell pepper's always got to be the loud guy telling your taste buds where to go -- and green, he's the loudest. Green is actually unripened, picked from the vine before its more sweet (and edible) brethren.
Recipe for angel hair pasta with red pepper pesto and basil

11. Beets: Despite all my white T-shirts you have stained purple, I still love you, beets. People fear you from an early age, but roasted or pickled, you take on a whole new form. The other camp thinks that the beet smell is such a toss-up between ick and gross and that the beet taste is so much like a metallic vitamin that it's just not meant to be.
Recipe for roasted beet salad


http://food.yahoo.com/blog/edlevineeats/22683/the-top-foods-people-love-or-hate/

Computer Worms on the go!!

Koobface, Other Worms Target Facebook Friends (NewsFactor)


  • Posted on Thu Mar 5, 2009 11:31AM EST
  • Add articles about technology to your My Yahoo!


- As Facebook works to make itself more relevant and timely for its growing member base with a profile page makeover, attackers seem to be working overtime to steal the identities of the friends, fans and brands that connect though the social-networking site.

Indeed, Facebook has seen five different security threats in the past week. According to Trend Micro, four new hoax applications are attempting to trick members into divulging their usernames and passwords. And a new variant of the Koobface worm is running wild on the site, installing malware on the computers of victims who click on a link to a fake YouTube video.

The Koobface worm is dangerous. It can be dropped by other malware and downloaded unknowingly by a user when visiting malicious Web sites, Trend Micro reports. When attackers execute the malware, it searches for cookies created by online social networks. The latest variant is targeting Facebook, but earlier variants have also plagued MySpace.

Koobface's Wicked Agenda

Once Koobface finds the social-networking cookies, it makes a DNS query to check IP addresses that correspond to remote domains. Trend Micro explains that those servers can send and receive information about the affected machine. Once connected, the malicious user can remotely perform commands on the victim's machine.

"Once cookies related to the monitored social-networking Web sites are located, it connects to these Web sites using the user log-in session stored in the cookies. It then navigates through pages to search for the user's friends. If a friend has been located, it sends an HTTP POST request to the server," Trend Micro reports.

Ultimately, the worm's agenda is to transform the victim's computer into a zombie and form botnets for malicious purposes. Koobface attempts to do this by composing a message and sending it to the user's friends. The message contains a link to a Web site where a copy of the worm can be downloaded by unsuspecting friends. And the cycle repeats itself.

An Attractive Face(book)

Malware authors are investing more energy in Facebook and other social-networking sites because that effort pays off, according to Michael Argast, a security analyst at Sophos. Facebook alone has more than 175 million users, which makes it an attractive target.

"Many computer users have been conditioned not to open an attachment from an e-mail or click a link found within, but won't think twice about checking out a hot new video linked to by a trusted friend on Facebook," Argast said.

Argast called the Koobface worm a mix of something old and something new. The new is using social networks as a method to spread malware. The old is using fake codec Trojans linked to a saucy video to induce the user to install the malware.

Argast said people can protect themselves by running up-to-date antivirus software, restricting which Facebook applications they install, thinking twice before clicking on links from friends and never, never installing a codec from some random Web site in the hopes of catching some celebrity in a compromised situation.

"I would expect to see more attacks on Facebook," Argast said. "As long as this is a successful propagation method, the bad guys will double down and invest more. They are entirely motivated by financial gain. If it pays, they'll continue to romp in your social playgrounds."


http://tech.yahoo.com/news/nf/20090305/tc_nf/65095

Sunday, March 1, 2009

10 Jobs for Quiet Workers



By Rachel Zupek, CareerBuilder.com

You can't help it -- you like your alone time. If you had it your way, you'd be at home most of the time, alone with your thoughts, your computer and your DVR. The time spent actually talking to anyone but your cats would be minimal.

Unfortunately, the real world exists -- one in which working from home is sometimes an option, but more than likely, you have to go to work.

If talking, socializing and general forms of human interaction aren't your thing, you probably loathe the idea of working in a cube where the chatter never stops, or in an office where your primary duty involves using your voice.

If you'd rather hone your quiet skills than your voice box, here are 10 jobs that let you work how you do best: alone.

1. Automotive service technician
Why it's quiet: Automotive service technicians have an intimate relationship with one thing: cars. Aside from a short conversation with clients on "what seems to be the problem," service technicians spend most of their time under the hood of the vehicle.
Salary*: $37,622/year

2. Cost estimator
Why it's quiet:
Cost estimators keep to themselves as they analyze everything from blueprints to proposals to determine the cost of a potential project from start to finish. They do their best to nail down costs on things like materials, labor, location and duration of the project to determine if business owners or managers should make a bid for a contract.
Salary: $53,413/year

3. Interior designer
Why it's quiet:
Though interior designers need to initially meet with their clients to determine their wants, needs and budget constraints, most of their time is spent alone as they focus on decorating. They choose styles and color palettes; and pick furniture, artwork and lighting. Many interior designers work as consultants or are self-employed.
Salary: $45,524/year

4. Librarian
Why it's quiet:
It might seem obvious, but given that librarians work in a mostly "no talking zone," it makes sense that a librarian position suits quiet workers. Most of your time is spent organizing and maintaining library publications and materials, and the rest you'll spend directing people to whatever they may need.
Salary: $48,025/year

5. Medical transcriptionist
Why it's quiet:
These guys don't talk; they listen. Medical transcriptionists copy recordings made by physicians or other health-care professionals into medical reports, correspondence or other materials. They usually listen to recordings on a headset and use a foot pedal to pause the recording when necessary. Many medical transcriptionists telecommute from home-based offices.
Salary: $31,251/year

6. Network systems analyst
Why it's quiet:
Network systems analysts don't consult much else except their computers as they design, test and evaluate computer systems like local area networks, wide area networks, the Internet and intranets. As networks expand, telecommuting is common for computer professionals because more work can be done from remote locations.
Salary: $40,827/year

7. Survey researcher
Why it's quiet:
The primary role of survey researchers is to find out what people think. Rather than interviewing people face to face, they design and conduct surveys via the Internet, mailed questionnaires or telephone interviews. Typically, they work alone writing reports, preparing charts and sifting through survey results.
Salary: $27,478/year

8. Translator
Why it's quiet:
Translators read written materials and translate them from one language into another. Because this position requires so much reading, writing, editing and analyzing, translators usually work alone. Many translators work from home and 22 percent of interpreters and translators are self-employed, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Salary: $42,229/year

9. Undertaker
Why it's quiet: With all due respect, your closest company in this profession is dead. Other than communicating with the family of the deceased to direct the funeral, you are pretty much guaranteed silence most of the time you work.
Salary: $42,278/year

10. Writers, authors and technical writers
Why it's quiet: In the movies, we always see writers escaping to their beach houses, lodges in the mountains or sometimes a haunted hotel -- remember "The Shining"? -- for one purpose: to write a novel. It's not just a stereotype that writers and authors need peace and quiet to work (trust me, I know).

Technical writers are particularly quiet and concentrated, as they focus on putting industrial and scientific information into layman's terms. Remember that simple five-step instruction manual to put together your dresser? A technical writer made those directives as basic as possible, which was probably not an easy task in itself, but was made easier by solitude.
Salary: $42,786/year and $55,707/year, respectively

*National average salary according to CBSalary.com

Rachel Zupek is a writer and blogger for CareerBuilder.com. She researches and writes about job search strategy, career management, hiring trends and workplace issues.

Copyright 2009 CareerBuilder.com. All rights reserved. The information contained in this article may not be published, broadcast or otherwise distributed without prior written authority.
Story Filed Thursday, February 26, 2009 - 11:21 AM

Why Hair Goes Gray?


Study Blames a Chain Reaction That Makes Hair Bleach Itself From the Inside Out

By Miranda HittiWebMD Health News
Reviewed by Louise Chang, MD

Feb. 25, 2009 -- Scientists may have figured out why hair turns gray, and their finding may open the door to new anti-graying strategies.

New research shows that hair turns gray as a result of a chemical chain reaction that causes hair to bleach itself from the inside out.

The process starts when there is a dip in levels of an enzyme called catalase. That catalase shortfall means that the hydrogen peroxide that naturally occurs in hair can't be broken down. So hydrogen peroxide builds up in the hair, and because other enzymes that would repair hydrogen peroxide's damage are also in short supply, the hair goes gray.

Putting the brakes on that chemical chain reaction "could have great implications in the hair graying scenario in humans," write the researchers, who included Karin Schallreuter, a professor clinical and experimental dermatology at England's University of Bradford.

The study appears online in The FASEB Journal; the FASEB is the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology.