Chocolate & Zucchini is a blog written by Clotilde Dusoulier, a 24 25 26 27 28 29-year-old Parisian woman who lives in Montmartre and shares her passion for all things food-related -- thoughts, recipes, musings, cookbook acquisitions, quirky ingredients, nifty tools, restaurant experiences, ideas, and inspirations.

The Sustainable Seafood Dilemma

I blame it all on my nephew.

Around the time that he was born, earlier this year, something clicked and I decided to take the whole sustainable seafood thing seriously: if he and his unborn cousins are to enjoy a long life full of lobster tails and skate wings, it is up to me to make informed and responsible choices now.

I had heard of the depletion of the oceans before, but I don't think I had quite realized how dire the situation is: fish populations the world over are threatened by overfishing, overconsumption, pollution, and fishing techniques that wreak havoc in local ecosystems. If we don't change our ways fast, major fish species may become extinct as early as 2050.

Like all environmental problems, this is an abysmally complex one, with multitudinous causes, implications, side effects, and collateral damages. And if you factor in other, equally pressing concerns, such as levels of mercury, PCB, and other contaminants, as well as the need to favor locally sourced ingredients, it all becomes rather overwhelming, befuddling, discouraging, check all that apply. Not everyone aspires to become an expert in marine matters, and not everyone has the time or inclination to decode what the experts are saying.

We just want to eat fish and be merry.

It is perhaps tempting then to sit on one's hands and say, well, I'm just the one consumer, I can't change the world, and that slab of red tuna on the fish stall or on the menu is already out of the water anyway, so I might as well eat it.

But no; it is best to let that slab of red tuna sit there, uneaten, for it is very much a chicken-or-egg (or rather, a fish-or-roe) matter. As much as we would want them to, restaurants and fish markets aren't in the business of saving the planet; they're in the business of making their customers happy.

And if what makes you happy is to feel sure that the fish you buy has been fished or farmed sustainably -- that is to say, in a way that ensures that the fish population will be maintained or increased, and that the ecosystem it belongs to is protected -- then it will become financially profitable for fish vendors and restaurateurs to care.

So, what to do, what to do?

First of all, you can get a pocket seafood guide that indicates the species you can eat, and those that you should avoid; the list varies depending on the region of the world where you live, and where the fish you can buy comes from. These guidelines are likely to change over time as seafood stocks evolve, so it's a good idea to get the freshest edition available.

The WWF links to seafood guides for European countries, the Monteray Bay Aquarium offers several for the United States, and this site lists a few more.

I've printed a copy of the French version for my purse, to use at the restaurant and at the poissonnerie, and I keep another one on the fridge, to use as a cheat sheet when I'm considering recipes.

(In passing, one feature that would be handy to find in such guides is a substitution chart that would say, "If your recipe calls for [species to avoid], consider using [sustainable alternative] instead." The Environmental Defense Fund offers this seafood selector, but I've yet to see something similar for the French cook.)

The pocket guide is a good start but, as a black-and-white view of a situation that has many shades of grey, it is not the magic shield one could hope for. Fish comes in so many varieties and under so many different names that the list cannot possibly be exhaustive, and imprecise labelling -- when it is not intentional mislabelling -- is a frequent hurdle on the responsible eater's path.

The only option then is to ask questions, whether at the fish counter or at the restaurant: what kind of fish is it, where does it come from, how was it farmed/caught?

Admittedly, this is not the easiest thing to do -- especially in France, where vendors and waiters are known to get defensive, and where well-intentioned curiosity is occasionally met with a take-it-or-leave-it-mademoiselle attitude. The trick is to adopt just the right tone so as not to sound high-and-mighty, yet make it clear how important it is to you.

One can only hope that, if enough consumers show concern, fish vendors and restaurant owners will be just as inquisitive with their suppliers -- if only to get us to shut up.

Lastly, an important thing we can all do is spread the word. A small portion of the public is even aware that there is a problem in the first place and, as eager cooks, as passionate eaters, we are in a position to alert and inform our friends, family, coworkers, and, if we happen to run a food blog*, our readers. I'm not suggesting the soapbox approach -- has that ever worked for anyone? -- but rather gentle nudges and offhand remarks, at the restaurant and at the shop, in the kitchen and at the table.

What about you? How do you deal with the sustainable seafood dilemma? Do you have resources, strategies, or thoughts to share on how to make better choices?

Recommended reading and resources:
- A series of posts written by an Australian marine ecologist.
- Lia's post on sourcing sustainable seafood.
- A Chef's Guide to Sourcing Sustainable Seafood, available for download from Chefs Collaborative.
- An online compilation of international seafood guides.
- The Monteray Bay Aquarium's Seafood Watch.
- The Oceans Today on the Marine Stewardship Council's website.
- The Marine Conservation Society's FishOnline website.
- The Environmental Defense Fund's seafood selector.

* If you have a food blog, consider participating in the upcoming edition of Teach a Man to Fish this October. Teach a Man to Fish is a food blogging event that promotes sustainable seafood; don't miss the wrap-up of last year's edition.

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	D'élevage ou Sauvage tu seras selon le cas : un Beau Bar ou un Loup-Bar Recette pour 4 personnes : 4 beaux bars de 250 gr au moins- 1 dl d'huile d'olive- 1 dl de pastis-branches de fenouil sec- bulbe de fenouil frais-sel et poivre-beurre d'anchois Ecailler le poisson Vider le poisson Emincer le fenouil (bulbe) finement et sauter à l'huile d'olive, assaisonner Garnir l'intérieur du poisson avec la julienne de fenouil émincé et sué à l'huile d'olive par le ventre ou les ouïes selon la méthode que vous avez employée pour le vider. Passer l'animal dans de l'huile d'olive et quadriller au grill classiquement Terminer la cuisson 10 minutes à four modéré (four réglé à 180°C ). Au moment d'envoyer disposer le poisson sur plat et y verser avec modération un bouchon de pastis sur la peau grillée du poisson. Flamber devant les convives bluffés de tant de mise en scéne ! Découper la bête et servir Servir cette douceur marine avec un beurre d'anchois. http://www.10000recettes.com/go_recette.php?&q=sous+vide&page=0&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.chefsimon.com%2Fet42.htm

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Chocolate & Zucchini

Wholesome Banana Chocolate Breakfast Bars

When Heidi posted about her friend Nikki's healthful cookies a couple of months ago, my curiosity was piqued, and the recipe firmly affixed to my mind's corkboard*.

And as soon as I had a few browning bananas on hand -- some might accuse me of letting them overripen on purpose, but that's just libel and they'll be hearing from my attorney -- I knew just how to put them to use.

I made a few modifications to the original recipe: 1- I used almond butter rather than coconut oil, which I didn't have. 2- I decreased the amount of chocolate -- completely out of character, I know, but I stopped when the chocolate-to-batter ratio felt right to me. 3- I didn't add the cinnamon because I'm not very fond of the banana-cinnamon pairing. 4- I also omitted the baking powder: there is virtually no gluten in the recipe**, so it didn't seem like a leavener would have much effect.

Oh, and instead of shaping bite-size cookies from the batter, I simply poured and baked the whole thing in a rectangular dish, and cut it into squareish bars after the fact: it was just easier, and because I knew we'd need a few days to eat our way through them and the fat content in the recipe was not very high, cutting servings as we went would help keep the texture fresh and moist.

And I'm happy to report it was a smashing success: these vegan oatmeal bars (or cookies) call for no sugar, and rely instead on the sweetening power of mashed bananas, and such flavor-bolstering ingredients as dark chocolate and grated coconut. The result is a discreetly sweet, but highly tasty confection that feels like a treat, but can be eaten for breakfast (it pairs well with clementines) without getting the dreaded sugar crash in mid-morning.

~~~

* Actually, I'm lying about the corkboard: to file and organize my digital notes, lists, and recipes, I use this handy Notebook tool for Mac OS X.

** Pure oats don't contain gluten, but there can be a smidgen in commercial oats that are processed along with other grains. If you can't have gluten at all, make sure the oats you use are labeled as gluten-free.

"Wholesome Banana Chocolate Breakfast Bars" continues »

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Swedish author and the first woman writer to win the Nobel Prize in Literature. Known internationally for Nils Holgerssons underbara resa genom Sverige (a story for children, in the most common translation The Wonderful Adventures of Nils, but the literal translation would be "Nils Holgersson's Wonderful Journey Through Sweden"), she was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1909 "in appreciation of the lofty idealism, vivid imagination and spiritual perception that characterize her writings."

Författarinnan Selma Lagerlöf uppmärksammas särskilt i Sveriges Radio under denna vecka i november då det är 150 år sedan hon föddes.
Reportage, musik, radioteater med mycket mera - ett flertal redaktioner har Selma som tema och här kan du läsa om vad som händer i Sveriges Radio.
Sveriges Radio

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Selma_Lagerl%C3%B6f

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Robert Scheer on Obama's Best Bet for Treasury
"Change We Can Bank On" -- This is not change we can believe in. Not if Robert Rubin or his protégé, Lawrence Summers, get to call the shots on the economy in President-elect Barack Obama's incoming administration. 

Chris Hedges on War and American Empire
"America's Wars of Self-Destruction" -- War is a poison. It is a poison that nations and groups must at times ingest to ensure their survival. But, like any poison, it can kill you just as surely as the disease it is meant to eradicate.

The National Prop. 8 Protests in Pictures
"Anti-Prop. 8 Protests Around the Country" -- On Saturday, people took to the streets all around the U.S. to protest the passage of California's Proposition 8 and to show their support for same-sex marriage. We've compiled 40 of our favorite photos from Spokane to Houston to New York City. 

Andrew Gumbel Responds to Gore Vidal
"A Rejoinder to Gore Vidal" -- Let me describe what happened in my interview with Gore Vidal for Vanity Fair's Spanish edition and why I felt compelled to report what was, in my experience, the single most shockingly racist line of the 2008 presidential election campaign.

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Sous-vide (French for "under vacuum", is a method of cooking that is intended to maintain the integrity of ingredients by heating them for an extended period of time at relatively low temperatures. Food is cooked for a long time, sometimes well over 24 hours. Unlike cooking in a slow cooker, sous-vide cooking uses airtight plastic bags placed in hot water well below boiling point (usually around 60°C or 140°F).

The method was developed by Georges Pralus in the mid-1970s for the Restaurant Troisgros (of Pierre and Michel Troigros) in Roanne, France. He discovered that when cooking foie gras in this manner it kept its original appearance, did not lose excess amounts of fat and had better texture.^[2] Another pioneer in the science of sous-vide is Bruno Goussault, who further researched the effects of temperature on various foods and became well-known for training top chefs in the method. As Chief Scientist of Cuisine Solutions, Goussault thoroughly developed the parameters of cooking times and temperatures for different foods.^[3] The sous-vide method is used in several gourmet restaurants under Thomas Keller, Jesse Mallgren, Paul Bocuse, Joël Robuchon, Charlie Trotter, and other chefs. Non-professional cooks are also beginning to use vacuum cooking.

Read more about Sous-Vide Cooking in the following articles:
The New York Times
Slate
Michael Ruhlman
Cooking Sous Vide at Home
Blog dedicated to molecular gastronomy
Sous-Vide & Cooking
What is Sous Vide Cooking?

Happy Cooking - Have a Great Experience!

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This is part of a series on French idiomatic expressions that relate to food. Read the introductory Edible Idiom post, and browse the list of French idioms featured so far.

This week's expression is, "Tomber comme un cheveu sur la soupe."

The literal translation is, "falling like a hair* on soup," and it means that something or someone appears at an inappropriate or incongruous moment, and is thus completely out of place. (The idiom can also be formed with the verbs arriver, to arrive, or venir, to come, instead of tomber, to fall.)

Interestingly enough, in the context of this expression, the hair found in a bowl of soup causes no disgust. It is merely seen as an anomaly, a thing of no value or consequence that diverts one's attention from what's really important: the soup.

Example: "Je n'ai vraiment pas aimé la fin : la scène avec les extraterrestres tombe comme un cheveu sur la soupe." "I really didn't like the ending: the scene with the aliens falls like a hair on soup."

Comme un cheveu sur la soupe is also the title of a 1957 movie with Louis de Funès (but no aliens).

* In French, there are two words for hair, depending on where it grows: un cheveu is the hair that grows on the head, whereas un poil is the hair that grows on the body. In both cases, the terms refer to an individual hair; if you were to compliment someone on his hair, you would use the plural, les cheveux.

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    150 gm(s) blue cheese (see recipe)
 1 small baguette
 100 gm(s) mixed salad leaves
 30 gm(s) chopped walnuts
 1 tsp(s) Dijon mustard
 1 shallot (finely chopped) optional
 2 tbsp(s) olive oil
 2 tbsp(s) sunflower oil

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The Wall Street bailout looks a lot like Iraq — a "free-fraud zone" where private contractors cash in on the mess they helped create - NAOMI KLEIN

Rolling Stone

Illustration by Victor Juhasz

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DemocracyNow! Video

A. The more details emerge, the clearer it becomes that Washington’s handling of the Wall Street bailout is not merely incompetent. It is borderline criminal,” says Naomi Klein, author of The Shock Doctrine.

B. John Brennan and Jami Miscik, both former intelligence officials under George Tenet, are leading Barack Obama’s review of intelligence agencies and helping make recommendations to the new administration. Brennan has supported warrantless wiretapping and extraordinary rendition, and Miscik was involved with the politicized intelligence alleging weapons of mass destruction in the lead-up to the war on Iraq. We speak with former CIA analyst Melvin Goodman and Michael Ratner of the Center for Constitutional Rights.

C. During an interview on 60 Minutes last night President-elect Barack Obama said he plans to close the US military prison at Guantanamo Bay and rebuild the nation’s moral stature. Last week, the Associated Press reported Obama advisers are crafting a plan that would put some Guantanamo Bay prisoners in front of a new court system designed to handle so-called “national security” cases.

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This is an extraordinary event. Other search app providers have told me they’ve been kept waiting months for approval of their app, with no explanation from Apple. But Google and Apple are close, even sharing Google CEO Eric Schmidt as a board member. Something definitely went sideways, most likely involving Apple throwing a fit of some sort (Apple is just plain weird about press).

Note our report last week that Apple seems to be working on some sort of search product of their own for the iPhone.

Meanwhile, lets all hope that the drama ends soon and that we wake up on Sunday to a fully available application. It’s reason alone to own an iPhone. Hell, I want it on my desktop.

Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0

Google was under the impression that the application would be live on the App Store on Friday (obviously, since they pushed all significant press attention to it). Sometime Friday they found out Apple wouldn’t be pushing it, despite the fact that Google submitted it for review earlier in the week and got a thumbs up for Friday. One source says they’ve had little direct contact with Apple during the review, instead getting their updates via the standard iPhone developer tool, which has said “in review” for the last few days.

Who knows why Apple delayed the application, or why they tend to treat every application developer equally poorly.

But in this case Apple really screwed up in our opinion.

If the application is half as good as the demo video shows, Google has done something pretty amazing with voice recognition and mobile platforms. This application will, quite simply, sell iPhones. Lots of them.

Google faced a decision on which mobile platform to first launch the application - the iPhone or their own Android. The fact that they decided to launch first on the iPhone shows a willingness to embrace what’s right for the user, and it’s something that few other companies would have done. Google could have launched for the Android first and pushed sales of phones on their platform. They didn’t, and Apple should have embraced them for that.

Next time I expect Google won’t be so trusting. And I don’t blame them.

Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.

German startup Cellity has unveiled its enhanced address book (called Addressbook 2.0) for mobile phones, now available in a private beta. The J2ME application allows users to aggregate data from across their Email boxes, social networks, and standard address books into a single intuitive application, bringing the functionality of a smartphone to the hundreds of more basic phones that support the Java platform. The company is offering 1000 invites to TechCrunch readers, which you can request here.

Beyond offering a complete database for contact information, the app allows users to place inexpensive phone calls over the company’s own PSTN network (which is similar to Jajah’s), and send free text messages. However, Cellity will also make a whitelabel version available in the future, which would allow cellular carriers to implement Addressbook 2.0 using their own native networks. The application also allows users to update status messages across multiple social networks.

Addressbook 2.0’s design is very polished, and is significantly more intuitive than most address books that come standard on cell phones. To get started, users import their friend lists from social networks including Xing, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter, as well as from Email clients like Outlook. The service will automatically detect when a friend is found on multiple social networks and aggregate their data under a single profile without creating duplicates.

And because address books generated using social networks can grow very large very quickly, the site offers an online control panel to manage contacts. Users can create a database consisting of thousands of entries to be stored in the cloud, picking out the few dozen that they use most regularly to be stored on the phone (they can access the full list from their phones if they ever need it). The online panel also allows includes the same features of the mobile app, allowing users to place calls, send text messages, and update social network statuses.

The company estimates that the application will run on around 650 available phones, which are less sexy than the iPhone and Android but account for a much larger mobile install base worldwide. The company will see no shortage of competition, as there have been a number of other efforts to integrate social networks with mobile phones, including Yahoo’s OneConnect (though Cellity seems to be highlighting on more traditional address book functionality rather than social networking).

Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.

2Win-Solutions - FRANCE
3scale networks S. L. - SPAIN [TC50 Demopit]
Apture - USA
Box.net, Inc. - USA
Brozengo SA - FRANCE
Charge Ventures - UK
Cmune - CHINA
ConTrust - ISRAEL
DoctorSIM - SPAIN
Edicy - ESTONIA
Haploid - FRANCE
IZI-collecte - FRANCE
Kaltura - USA
MyID.is Certified - FRANCE
Nimbuzz - NETHERLANDS [Reviewed]
Popego Inc. - USA
Producteev Inc. - USA
Publing - FRANCE
Radionomy - BELGIUM [Reviewed]
Samedi GmbH - GERMANY
ShoutEm Ltd. - CROATIA
Silentale SAS - FRANCE
SquareClock - FRANCE [Reviewed]
Tellmewhere - FRANCE
Trendiction - LUXEMBURG
Viewdle, Inc - UKRAINE [Reviewed]
Westcom, s.r.o. - CZECH REPUBLIC
Zavedenia.com - BULGARIA
Zipipop Ltd (Zipiko) - FINLAND
Zoover Holiday Reviews - NETHERLANDS

The companies get 7 minutes each to pitch to the judges on the day. There’s also a new element - a special Start-up Competitors’ Lounge where companies will have a chance to informally network with interested parties. Here’s how they were selected.

The judges who will be judging the competition at the actual event will be:

Ola Ahlvahrsson - Result
Roberto Bonanzinga – Balderton Capital
Mike Butcher - TechCrunchUK
Laurent Chiozotto – Sun Microsystems
Julien Codorniou - Microsoft
Don Dodge – Microsoft
David Hornik –August Capital
Pierre Kosciusko-Morizet - Price Minister
Simon Levene – Accel Partners
Om Malik - GigaOM
Dave McClure - 500Hats
Freddy Mini - Netvibes
Marc Samwer – European Founders Fund
Axel Schmiegelow - Sevenload
Gary Shainberg – British Telecom
Megan Smith – Google
Pascal Thomas - Orange
Martin Varsavsky - FON

Also, don’t forget that TechCrunch readers get a 20% discount code via this link. Techcrunch is throwing a closing night party - details about tickets will be announced in due course, and sponsorship opportunities are still open (email Ouriel AT techcrunch.com).

Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0

Watch out Skype (and Meebo and TokBox), Google is adding voice and video chat to Gmail today, all in one fell swoop. When you are having an instant message conversation with someone over Gtalk, a video and voice option will appear (after you download this plugin).

From the Google Blog:

Just click on the new “Video & more” menu in a Gmail chat window and select “Start video chat” or “Start voice chat.” You can switch to a full screen view or pop out the chat window and change the size and positioning as you wish. Of course, not everyone has a webcam, but even if you don’t, you can still have voice conversations alongside your email and regular chat

Bringing video chat into the Gmail page, just as it does with regular IM, is in step with Google’s efforts to connect its disparate services together in a more seamless fashion. It is also a better experience. If you use Gmail as your primary email, you always have it open. That means you don’t have to open up a separate application just to conduct an impromptu text, voice, or video chat (as you do with other IM clients). These are all just different modes of communication, available to you as appropriate. Life just got a lot harder for startups pushing point solutions around video chat.

The new feature was developed out of Google’s engineering group in Sweden, where it acquired e-meeting startup Marratech in April, 2007. Serge Lachapelle, the Swedish Google product manager in the video below, used to be the VP of product management at Marratech.

So maybe in another 18 months we’ll see the Marratech’s cool whiteboarding feature incorporated into Gmail as well (see the old Marratech product shot below):

Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.

If you are looking for something to do in Europe, check out Happenr, an events search engine that covers Germany, Ireland, Belgium, and the top 100 cities across the Continent. The site just launched after a year in development. It scours thousands of European tourism, town, and cultural sites to keep its events database up to date, and is available in English, German, and Dutch (events are displayed in their original languages).

The site is operated by a Belgian company called Oxynade founded by two Belgian engineers: Hans Nissens and Niko Nelissen. (Disclosure: One of our writers, Robin Wauters, is an investor and acting as head of marketing). The founders have put 50,000 Euros into the bootstrap startup, and received another 50,000 Euros in the form of a grant from the Belgian government.

Event databases are a dime a dozen, and Happenr is up against more established, better funded competitors including Eventful, Zvents, and even Yahoo’s Upcoming.org. Happenr thinks there is still room for a comprehensive events search engine in Europe, and it believes it has a better way of indexing events automatically.

I can’t really see too much difference in the quality of search results, but I do like the map view that places each event on a map, and goes down to the street level. The startup already has an API that lets other sites tap into its database, and has developed an iPhone app that is still awaiting approval (see screen shots below). Getting this on mobile phones is really essential. Soon Happenr will add the ability to create and subscribe to an RSS feed for any search result page. The company also offers a search widget that anyone can customize and embed on other sites.

The startup hopes to make money by licensing its hyper-local content to European media companies who want to incorporate the events search onto their sites (the free API links back to Happenr). The other sources of revenues will be ticket sales (not yet turned on) and advertising.

Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.

Google’s release of its Gmail Video service is noteworthy for several reasons. It is integrated into the Gmail console, adding voice and video services to the realtime console that is being built out around XMPP. It is remarkably easy to use; Dan Farber just called to test the service and I popped the window out and continued chatting with him while returning to this post. Several alerts on Yammer and Friendfeed’s realtime IM competed briefly in other chat windows. Oh, and Google just added about a quarter of its version of Silverlight to my MacBook Air. Call it Silverlite.

Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.

Multiply, a social network largely geared towards adults, has launched a new set of printing features that allow members to order professional prints of their photos directly from their online albums and those of their friends.

Available photo products include photo books, calendars, cards, and standard prints. The site uses an intuitive drag-and-drop interface to place photos, allowing users to cull shots from both their own online albums and those of their friends. Users can collaboratively put together a photo book, but are also free to copy and manipulate each album to their liking (for example, parents could work together to create a photo book of their little league team, customizing the cover of each printed book to feature a photo of their own child).

Multiply has a leg up on some of the major social networks because it has long positioned itself as a media-centric site - the site’s 10 million users have uploaded twice as many photos per capita as Facebook’s. And unlike Facebook, which only offers photo printing at the low resolutions visible on the site, all Multiply photos are stored at their original resolution. To help facilitate getting photos
onto the site, Multiply released an application earlier this year based on Adobe’s AIR platfrom that automatically uploads new photos to the social network.

Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors

It was like a weather forecaster in Houston last weekend talking about the onset of Hurricane Ike by giving the average wind speed for the previous month.

But many on Wall Street did even worse, as Mr. Berman describes it. They continued to trade very complex securities concocted by their most creative bankers even though their risk management systems weren’t able to understand the details of what they owned.

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Quoted: Amidst Wall Street Woes, Labor Activist & Writer Bill Fletcher on “Solidarity Divided: The Crisis in Organized Labor and a New Path toward Social Justice”

While the press has extensively covered the Wall Street meltdown, little attention has been paid to what this means to the American worker. We speak to longtime labor activist and writer Bill Fletcher, co-author with Fernando Gapasin of the new book Solidarity Divided: The Crisis in Organized Labor and a New Path toward Social Justice. Fletcher is the executive editor of BlackCommentator.com and the former president of TransAfrica Forum.

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KurzweilAI.net features the big thoughts of today's big thinkers examining the confluence of accelerating revolutions that are shaping our future world, and the inside story on new technological and social realities from the pioneers actively working in these arenas.

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Quoted: Investors jumped back into the stock market Thursday afternoon after the world's central banks embarked on a coordinated effort to ease the fear coursing through the global financial system, sending the Dow industrials up more than 400 points.

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Quoted: What's Snackr? It's an RSS ticker that pulls random items from your feeds and scrolls them across your desktop. When you see a title that looks interesting, you can click on it to pop up the item in a window.

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Quoted: The Electronic Frontier Foundation has filed suit against the NSA, Presid