Nepenthe

You hear sporty types asking all manner of questions about prospective trainers. Do they have inbuilt stability webs, offer motion control, secure kinematic advantage? In turn, sports shops offer services such as gait analysis. But few offer a take-back service for trainers, despite their mayfly-like lifespans. Yes, the elephant in the room - probably wearing multidensity midsoles - remains the lack of a fully 'ethical' trainer. It's odd, given the opprobrium (and damaged sales) following Nineties revelations about the industry. Labour practices in Indonesia and Vietnam, particularly in factories used by Nike, were shown on CBS in 1997 and a sort of consumer revolution happened. That year Nike became the first of two companies to be removed from the Domini 400 Social Index, the biggest US 'ethical index', because of concerns over its international labour standards.Elements have improved dramatically. Nike is now held up as a benchmark for good factory auditing and i...

One thing that always fascinates me is how reductionist, how mechanical, how sciencey and medical we like our stories about the body to be. This week, a new study was published on acupuncture. Many newspapers said it showed acupuncture performing better than medical treatment: in fact it was 8 million times more interesting than that. They took 1,162 patients who had suffered with back pain for an average of eight years (so these were patients who had failed with medical treatment anyway) and divided them into three groups. The first group had some more medical treatment; the second had full-on acupuncture with all the trimmings, the needles all put carefully into the correct "meridians" and so on; while the third group just had some bloke pretending to be an acupuncturist, sticking needles in their skin at random. The study set a threshold for "response to treatment", which was an improvement of 33% on three items out of a bigger scale, or 12% on one symptom scale....

You can forgo expensive non-eco friendly store-bought cleaners for our two wonder products instead. Before you start washing, sprinkle baking soda through the car’s interior to remove odors. Vacuum it up when the outside washing is done. For the car body, grab a bucket, and pour in 1⁄2 cup of vinegar for every gallon of water; scrub car with a big sponge. For windows, mirrors, and interior plastic, mix 2 cups of water and 1⁄2 cup vinegar in an empty spray bottle. You can add up to 1⁄4 cup of rubbing alcohol and, to make it look fancier, one drop each, no more, of blue and green food coloring. Instead of rags, use newspapers to clean. Shine.

The London Underground map as you've never seen it before

From Hitler to Pinochet and beyond, history shows there are certain steps that any would-be dictator must take to destroy constitutional freedoms. And, argues Naomi Wolf, George Bush and his administration seem to be taking them all 1. Invoke a terrifying internal and external enemy 2. Create a gulag 3. Develop a thug caste 4. Set up an internal surveillance system 5. Harass citizens' groups 6. Engage in arbitrary detention and release 7. Target key individuals 8. Control the press 9. Dissent equals treason 10. Suspend the rule of law Naomi Wolf at The Colbert Report

L’homme est une plante qui porte des pensées, comme un rosier porte des roses et un pommier des pommes. [Antoine Fabre d’Olivet] L’Histoire philosophique du genre humain L'avantage d'être intelligent, c'est qu'on peut toujours faire l'imbécile, alors que l'inverse est totalement impossible. [Woody Allen]

If you want to prepare truly authentic Spanish dishes, from paella to patatas con chorizo, there is only one book you need - the traditional cooking bible of Spain that contains 1,080 recipes from the mother and daughter team of Simone and Inés Ortega now translated into English for the first time In the last 30 years over a million copies of 1080 have been sold in Spain. It is the bible of Spanish cookery, Spain's favourite cookbook, and contains recipes for everything from little ham croquetas, perfect paellas or tortilla Espanol to patatas con chorizo and pigs' trotters, Spanish style. The original book was written by Simone Ortega, a Spanish food writer who has been writing for 50 years and whose work is hugely respected by luminaries like the Spanish über-chef, Ferran Adrià: 'This is an historic book, for those who like to feed the soul as well as the stomach.' The book has now been translated into English for the first time. Simone's daughter, Inés, ...

Blame sushi! The 2007 quota of nearly 17,000 tonnes of bluefin tuna has already been exhausted for this year, forcing the European commission to impose a ban on bluefin tuna fishing in Europe, specifically in Cyprus, Greece, Malta, Portugal and Spain for the rest of the year. Italy and France closed their own fisheries in July and August. Experts say that the rising popularity of sushi is to be blamed for the rising demand for bluefin tuna. Unlike most tuna, bluefin grows slowly and matures late, making it vulnerable to intensive trawling. The typical size is 2 m (6.6 ft) at about 500 kg (1,100 lb). Based on what I saw (or I should say did not see) diving in Crete last week, I seriously doubt there is a single fish of that size in the Mediterranean any more. Gadling

How the world of tomorrow looked through yesterday's lens Slide Show >> Think "future" and "work," and iconic images spring to mind: the belching, subterranean M-Machine in Fritz Lang's 1927 film Metropolis , the disaffected laborers in George Orwell's 1984 (1949). Popular culture has always offered up depictions of what lies in store for us tomorrow—visions both utopian and dystopian, earnest and arch, eerily prescient and hilariously off-base. Here—from movies, media, and World's Fairs—is a sampling of some of the ways we used to think about the future of work. Slide Show >> 1910s-20s Celestial splendor for the brains, a Bosch-like hell for the brawn. Seething in the bowels of 2100 London in H.G. Wells' The Sleeper Awakes (1910), mobs of laborers are barely held in check by a priesthood of technocrats. In RUR (1921), Czech playwright Karel Capek has his Robots, designed for docility, overthrow their human ta...

Gadling on September 8th

Computer Closest to the North Pole: Webcam #1 Who's in charge: The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory takes care of this floating eye at the top of the world. A view close to the North Pole from Webcam #1 Make and model: NetCam XL, made by StarDot Technologies. Proximity to the pole: Varies. "Since the North Pole is in the middle of the Arctic Ocean, we deploy our instrumentation on an ice floe as close to the pole as we can," says Nancy Soreide, associate director for IT at NOAA's Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory. "However, the ice floe does not stay at or near the pole. It drifts." How it works: The webcam's container stands on a metal apparatus, on top of a piece of plywood and the ice. A battery floats beneath the ice surface, powering the webcam, which sends back pictures via satellite. Prime time: Runs only during the balmier months, between April and October. Life sp...

Chosen by a literary all-star jury that included: Monica Ali; Vikram Chandra; Jared Diamond; Peter Mayle; John McPhee; Francine Prose; Paul Theroux; Gore Vidal; and more. Along the Ganges Ilija Trojanow (2006) Arabian Sands Wilfred Thesiger (1959) An Area of Darkness V. S. Naipaul (1965) As They Were M.F.K. Fisher (1982) A Barbarian in Asia Henri Michaux (1933) The Bird Man and the Lap Dancer Eric Hansen (2004) Bitter Lemons of Cyprus Lawrence Durrell (1957) Black Lamb and Grey Falcon Rebecca West (1942) Blue Highways William Least Heat-Moon (1982) Captain John Smith: Writings (2007) Chasing the Monsoon Alexander Frater (1993) Chasing the Sea Tom Bissell (2003) Cross Country Robert Sullivan (2006) Dark Star Safari Paul Theroux (2003) Democracy in America Alexis de Tocqueville (1835) Down and Out in Paris and London George Orwell (1933) Down the Nile: Alone in a Fisherman's Skiff Rosemary Mahoney (2007) The Emperor Ryszard Kapuściński (1978; translated by William R. Brand and Kat...

Everyone knows chocolate is supposed to melt in your mouth, not in your hands. But there is much more to properly tasting chocolate. You inspect it. Smell it. Break it in half to see if it snaps cleanly. Then go ahead and take a bite. Chew it a little to release the initial flavor. Then let it melt in your mouth. Take a little air into your mouth, and after a moment or two, swallow the chocolate and wait for any aftertaste. That, according to Patrick F. Fields, is the correct way to taste chocolate. "It's the most chemically rich and diverse naturally occurring food on the planet," says Fields. "And it tastes good!" He should know. An adjunct instructor of biology at Olivet College who specializes in botany, Fields studies and teaches about the history and culture of one of the world's most popular confections. And he holds dozens of chocolate tastings every year. At the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, Fields teaches a four-week adult-education co...