This photo spread is absolutely moving. Also, its depressing...40 years after King and 100 years after women's suffrage we have to convince people to "get out the vote".

-janelane

Today's Pictures: Martin Luther King Jr. Day

U.S. anthropologist and longtime Haiti activist Paul Farmer called the [2008] hurricane season an "unnatural disaster," saying that a "Marshall Plan" was needed to rebuild Haiti's political institutions or the country would "have a hard time surviving the hurricane season." But the damage unleashed this week by a 7.0 magnitude earthquake was probably more than even he could have imagined.

I don't know if I'd go so far as to characterize Haiti as "the unluckiest country", but they've certainly had their fair share of upheavals and natural disasters. At some point, after floods and hurricanes and earthquakes combined with crushing dictatorships and poverty, doesn't relocation look like a pretty good idea? Maybe aid should be directed to that initiative instead of more fruitless government stabilization programs. Judging just from the information in this article, they can't even being to restore the environment to fend off natural disasters, much less revamp their entire government to enforce basic international building codes to plan for the next disaster.

Times like these I'm glad I picked engineering over PoliSci...I just have no idea what the answer is.

-janelane

The Unluckiest Country | Foreign Policy

Hugh H. Hurt Jr., a safety engineer who in 1981 did the first meticulous study of motorcycle accidents, emulating air-crash investigations to zero in on when cycle accidents were likely to occur, died on Sunday in Pomona, Calif. He was 81.

Would that fate was always so self-explanatory.

-janelane

Hugh Hurt Jr., Engineer Who Studied Motorcycle Accidents, Dies at 81 - Obituary (Obit) - NYTimes.com

You can help the victims of countless crises, like the recent earthquake in Haiti, around the world each year by making a financial gift to the American Red Cross International Response Fund, which will provide immediate relief and long-term support through supplies, technical assistance and other support to help those in need.

The death toll is estimated at 100,000, and they haven't even begun cleanup. Donate now, donate anything.

-janelane

American Red Cross: Haiti donations

Sennheiser PX 100 Collapsible Headphones

I'll never, *ever* go back to earbuds. These are seriously comfortable and have awesome sound.

-janelane

Amazon.com: Sennheiser PX 100 Collapsible Headphones: Electronics

In the end, the researchers were able to apply their analysis to only six of the original 2,000-plus trials. These lucky few constitute an idiosyncratic mix: on the one hand, a multi-center NIMH trial, on the other, a study of St. John’s wort and imipramine as used in general medical practice in Germany. By chance, the trials tested only two antidepressants, Paxil and imipramine. (Parenthetically, some overviews have found Paxil to be among the least effective of the antidepressants.) It is this summary of six studies [out of 2,000] of two medications that has led the press to report more or less conclusively that antidepressants do little for minor mood disorders.

This is what's happened to journalism --> regurgitating medical "findings" without critically analyzing them. I shouldn't have to turn to a feminist blog for critical thinking and in-depth reporting.

-janelane

The problem with treating depression isn’t that antidepressants don’t work.

I thought CBS News's story about water scarcity was good considering the short duration (Watch the video here). However, one myth continues to be spread in the popular press. The myth is that 36 states will face water shortages.

I just found this blog and I dig it. Water nerds unite!

-janelane

watercrunch

Mr. Yamaguchi, as a 29-year-old engineer for Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, was on a business trip in Hiroshima when the United States dropped the first atomic bomb on the morning of Aug. 6, 1945. He was getting off a streetcar when the “Little Boy” device detonated above Hiroshima.

Mr. Yamaguchi said he was less than 2 miles away from ground zero. His eardrums were ruptured and his upper torso was burned by the blast, which destroyed most of the city’s buildings and killed 80,000 people.

Mr. Yamaguchi spent the night in a Hiroshima bomb shelter and returned to his hometown of Nagasaki the following day, according to interviews he gave over the years. The second bomb, known as “Fat Man,” was dropped on Nagasaki on Aug. 9, killing 70,000 people there.

-janelane

Survivor of 2 Atomic Bombs Dies at 93 - Obituary (Obit) - NYTimes.com

About the name: Cooking For Engineers
Michael selected the name "Cooking For Engineers" on a whim. He has no idea if it means "To cook for the purposes of providing engineers with food" or "To instruct engineers in the science and art of cooking". He likes the ambiguity, and other people seem to find the name intriguing and even interesting. He regrets that the name can be misread (when in a rush) to be "Cooking Foreigners".

Cool. Includes step-by-step photos. Maybe "Cooking for Dummies" would be more appropriate. :-)

-janelane

About Cooking For Engineers

As I try to get in the holiday spirit, I keep finding things that get me out of it. The weather, trying to think of gifts, dreading travel – it all weighs on me.

Then this comes along. A wilting Christmas tree, wrapped in barbed wire and wearing a couple dreary, rust-colored stars. The cat is kinda cute, but is it supposed to be an ornament, or something the tree has captured? And why does it have wings, anyway? I’ve never seen the TV special in which children send holiday wishes to The Winged Black Christmas Cat.

Item Not As Described: FREE Is A Four Letter Word