1 large onion (1/2 finely diced, other 1/2 finely sliced)
60 ml olive oil (approx 1/4 cup, divided in half)
1 garlic clove, finely chopped
1 tsp ginger, grated or chopped
100 g lentils (approx. 1/4 lb)
4 tsp soy sauce
4 tsp vinegar
2 tsp pomegranate molasses
100 ml thick yoghurt (approx 2/5 cup)
1 large tsp sumac
Finely dice half the onion and fry in half the oil until it begins to caramelize. Add garlic, ginger, ad cook a little more, stirring well.
Add lentils, soy sauce, and enough water to cover by 1 cm. Bring to a boil, cover and simmer until al dente. Add water if needed, or remove lid and simmer until liquid has evaporated.
Tip into bowl and let cool. (Takes approx 1 hour to cook when recipe is doubled.)
Heat remaining oil in a small frying pan and add the other half of the onion, finely sliced. Cook over moderate heat, until caramelized. Add vinegar, and cook to evaporate. Add pomegranate molasses and bring to a boil. Tip into another bowl.
To serve, spoon a mound of lentils onto plate, dollop on some yoghurt and sprinkle on a little sumac, then finish with a small pile of onions.
13 July 2009
22 June 2009
Link intermediary?
I'm looking for advice. Here's the problem: what's a good persistent link mediator, along the lines of how a DOI resolver works for publications, but for something else that we're going to curate over time. Let me set the background.
We're assembling a genus-level revision of the Decapoda (roughly 3000 taxa). Along the way, we've put together a pretty definitive list of the references for the authorities. Because Decapoda are such a long-known group, lots of these are of the really nasty historical sort (multiple years of publication, individual papers with discontinuous page ranges, printed dates of publication that aren't the actual dates of publication, etc.). So the bibliography for this thing (some of us think, anyway) is nearly as valuable a piece of work as the taxonomy.
Add to that the fact that along the way we've been assembling PDFs of many of the primary references and making them available via the bibliographic entries (all at http://decapoda.nhm.org/references).
Like the taxonomy itself, the bibliographic information will change with time after the work is formally published. Taxonomy changes due to new science; these references will change as we get better information on true publication dates, authors, and so forth. Plus, we'll be adding new PDFs and links to DOIs for contemporary publications.
In the ideal world, we'd do a whizz-bang digitally-enabled journal publication where each taxon would be linked to the stable taxonomic repository for that information (e.g. WoRMS, where this taxonomy will probably end up). Reality: we won't get the information online there in time for the article publication, and we can't delay publication or some of the collaborators will forcibly rearrange our anatomy.
What we can do, though, is create links in the publication for each of the bibliographic references. Those would go to our curated web database of bibliographic entries, which also gives access to whatever PDFs or DOIs we've scared up for them (more with time, remember). That's a nice first pass.
But ultimately, as Keynes said, we're all dead. So we plan to hand off this bibliographic database to a stable bibliographic provider (the Biodiversity Heritage Library's new reprint initiative, for example). But that will happen "later" (when? who knows).
So... here's the question (if you're still alive): Is there a stable intermediating service on the Web we can use to direct these links? Initially, we'd populate the entries with links that would get you from a click on the journal article to a bibliographic entry on our website. "One day" we'd rewrite those entries so that the same click on the old archived journal article would get you to the new shiny bibliographic repository that will happily host our entries in the future.
I'm eager for suggestions.
Thanks!
We're assembling a genus-level revision of the Decapoda (roughly 3000 taxa). Along the way, we've put together a pretty definitive list of the references for the authorities. Because Decapoda are such a long-known group, lots of these are of the really nasty historical sort (multiple years of publication, individual papers with discontinuous page ranges, printed dates of publication that aren't the actual dates of publication, etc.). So the bibliography for this thing (some of us think, anyway) is nearly as valuable a piece of work as the taxonomy.
Add to that the fact that along the way we've been assembling PDFs of many of the primary references and making them available via the bibliographic entries (all at http://decapoda.nhm.org/references).
Like the taxonomy itself, the bibliographic information will change with time after the work is formally published. Taxonomy changes due to new science; these references will change as we get better information on true publication dates, authors, and so forth. Plus, we'll be adding new PDFs and links to DOIs for contemporary publications.
In the ideal world, we'd do a whizz-bang digitally-enabled journal publication where each taxon would be linked to the stable taxonomic repository for that information (e.g. WoRMS, where this taxonomy will probably end up). Reality: we won't get the information online there in time for the article publication, and we can't delay publication or some of the collaborators will forcibly rearrange our anatomy.
What we can do, though, is create links in the publication for each of the bibliographic references. Those would go to our curated web database of bibliographic entries, which also gives access to whatever PDFs or DOIs we've scared up for them (more with time, remember). That's a nice first pass.
But ultimately, as Keynes said, we're all dead. So we plan to hand off this bibliographic database to a stable bibliographic provider (the Biodiversity Heritage Library's new reprint initiative, for example). But that will happen "later" (when? who knows).
So... here's the question (if you're still alive): Is there a stable intermediating service on the Web we can use to direct these links? Initially, we'd populate the entries with links that would get you from a click on the journal article to a bibliographic entry on our website. "One day" we'd rewrite those entries so that the same click on the old archived journal article would get you to the new shiny bibliographic repository that will happily host our entries in the future.
I'm eager for suggestions.
Thanks!
07 June 2009
Research data on cellphones
At the recent e-Biosphere 09 conference much of the discussion was centered around the self-satisfied view that we are all finally getting biodiversity information and analysis tools onto the web. At that point, it's implied, they're really available to everyone.
In the so-called Looking to the Future session, there were two speakers. Townsend Peterson from University of Kansas gave us a pungent reminder that we really ought to be prioritizing research-quality data for the web. Crappy information, whatever its quantity, isn't going to get us very far.
Town was followed by Stella Simiyu, BGCI/SCBD Programme Officer for the Global Strategy for Plant Conservation, IUCN ESARO in Nairobi, Kenya. Her message was a bit starker: it's delightful to think that putting things on the web is a step forward, but that only applies if you have an Internet connection. Kenya (by and large) doesn't, and that's common to much of the developing world. Ironically, of course, it's the developing world where most biodiversity exists and needs to be measured and studied.
Having visited Kenya, I can understand what she means. There's theoretical Internet connectivity (Internet cafés are scattered about), but the speed is about 1200 baud. That's not an exaggeration, but my considered estimate. Try reading GMail sometime on a PC with a 1200 baud connection. Odds are you can't even get a connection that slow. If you did, you'd never do it again.
So my one-line summary of those two really enlightening talks was: Get research grade information onto cellphones.
Cellphones? Yes, cellphones. Kenya (and much of the developing world) doesn't have real-world Internet connectivity, but cellphones are wall-to-wall.
That made me start to think practically. Cellphones are everywhere, but cellphone connectivity isn't completely ubiquitous. What that implies is that we should start thinking about using smart phones that can run small native apps with small local data stores as biodiversity tools.
The kinds of things that could be put onto those devices could include interactive taxonomic keys, species data collection apps (including images and geolocating), geographic measurement apps (again, using geolocation capabilities). And much, much more.
Lots of these ideas are being fleshed out with Internet-hosted back ends. We need to be thinking about how these apps can be designed from the outset so that they can also have some functionality on unconnected smart phones. That could be a big win.
In the so-called Looking to the Future session, there were two speakers. Townsend Peterson from University of Kansas gave us a pungent reminder that we really ought to be prioritizing research-quality data for the web. Crappy information, whatever its quantity, isn't going to get us very far.
Town was followed by Stella Simiyu, BGCI/SCBD Programme Officer for the Global Strategy for Plant Conservation, IUCN ESARO in Nairobi, Kenya. Her message was a bit starker: it's delightful to think that putting things on the web is a step forward, but that only applies if you have an Internet connection. Kenya (by and large) doesn't, and that's common to much of the developing world. Ironically, of course, it's the developing world where most biodiversity exists and needs to be measured and studied.
Having visited Kenya, I can understand what she means. There's theoretical Internet connectivity (Internet cafés are scattered about), but the speed is about 1200 baud. That's not an exaggeration, but my considered estimate. Try reading GMail sometime on a PC with a 1200 baud connection. Odds are you can't even get a connection that slow. If you did, you'd never do it again.
So my one-line summary of those two really enlightening talks was: Get research grade information onto cellphones.
Cellphones? Yes, cellphones. Kenya (and much of the developing world) doesn't have real-world Internet connectivity, but cellphones are wall-to-wall.
That made me start to think practically. Cellphones are everywhere, but cellphone connectivity isn't completely ubiquitous. What that implies is that we should start thinking about using smart phones that can run small native apps with small local data stores as biodiversity tools.
The kinds of things that could be put onto those devices could include interactive taxonomic keys, species data collection apps (including images and geolocating), geographic measurement apps (again, using geolocation capabilities). And much, much more.
Lots of these ideas are being fleshed out with Internet-hosted back ends. We need to be thinking about how these apps can be designed from the outset so that they can also have some functionality on unconnected smart phones. That could be a big win.
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