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R2013a – Looking around in MATLAB
Matlab Image processing blog - 2013, May 15 - 10:55
The first MathWorks general product release of the year, R2013a, shipped a couple of months ago. I've already mentioned it once here in my 12-Mar-2013 post about the new MATLAB unit test framework.
With each new release, I peruse the release notes for MATLAB to see what things I find particularly interesting. (This helps me remember which product features have actually been released, as opposed to still being in development. My memory needs all the help it can get.)
The first thing to note is the reappearance of the table of contents for navigating in the Help Browser and in the online Documentation Center. This is a direct result of helpful feedback we received from many of you about the R2012b release.
My favorite "make-it-go-faster-without-sacrificing-accuracy" people (the MATLAB Math Team, that is) have been busy again. People with computers based on Intel or AMD chips using the AVX instruction set should see their calls to fft speed up. Anybody running permute on 3-D or higher-dimensional arrays should also get a nice boost. I've done a lot of development work related to image and scientific format support, so I know that a fast permute can be pretty useful when reading image and scientific data. That's because most of these formats store array elements in the file in a different order than MATLAB uses in memory.
In the small-but-nice category, the MATLAB Math Team also simplified a common programming pattern in my own neck of the woods (image processing). Specifically, it's a bit easier to initial an array of 0s or 1s whose type is based on existing array. Here's an example to illustrate:
clear % Let's start with a fresh workspace. rgb = imread('peppers.png'); imshow(rgb) title('Obligatory image screenshot')Now I want a 100-by-100 matrix of 0s with the same data type as rgb.
A = zeros(100,100,'like',rgb); % Make a 100-by-100 matrix that's "like" rgb. whos Name Size Bytes Class Attributes A 100x100 10000 uint8 rgb 384x512x3 589824 uint8My developer friend Tom Bryan really "likes" this (ahem) because it enables much easier solutions to some common programming tasks for users of Fixed-Point Designer.
I have occasionally done a little web scripting in MATLAB, so it's nice to see urlread and urlwrite get a little love. These functions can now handle basic authentication via the 'Authentication', 'Username', and 'Password' parameters.
Do you use a Mac? You can now write MPEG-4 H.264 files using VideoWriter (requires Mac OS 10.7 or later).
A couple of handy new string functions have appeared, strsplit and strjoin. Based on how often users have submitted their own versions to the MATLAB Central File Exchange, I'm sure these will be popular.
out = strsplit(pwd,'\') out = 'B:' 'published' '2013'You can now do extrapolation with both scattered and gridded interpolation. For extrapolation with scattered interpolation, use the new scatteredInterpolant. Here's an example I lifted from the doc.
Query the interpolant at a single point outside the convex hull using nearest neighbor extrapolation.
Define a matrix of 200 random points.
P = -2.5 + 5*gallery('uniformdata',[200 2],0);Sample an exponential function. These are the sample values for the interpolant.
x = P(:,1); y = P(:,2); v = x.*exp(-x.^2-y.^2);Create the interpolant, specifying linear interpolation and nearest neighbor extrapolation.
F = scatteredInterpolant(P,v,'linear','nearest') F = scatteredInterpolant with properties: Points: [200x2 double] Values: [200x1 double] Method: 'linear' ExtrapolationMethod: 'nearest'Evaluate the interpolant outside the convex hull.
vq = F(3.0,-1.5) vq = 0.0031Disable extrapolation and evaluate F at the same point.
F.ExtrapolationMethod = 'none'; vq = F(3.0,-1.5) vq = NaNI encourage you to wander over to the R2013a release notes for MATLAB or any other product that you use and see what's new that might be helpful to you.
There are also lots of new things in the image processing and computer vision worlds, of course. I'll look at those next time.
\n'); d.write(code_string); // Add copyright line at the bottom if specified. if (copyright.length > 0) { d.writeln(''); d.writeln('%%'); if (copyright.length > 0) { d.writeln('% _' + copyright + '_'); } } d.write('\n'); d.title = title + ' (MATLAB code)'; d.close(); } -->
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Dictionary of Numbers
XKCDblog - 2013, May 15 - 09:31
I don’t like large numbers without context. Phrases like “they called for a $21 billion budget cut” or “the probe will travel 60 billion miles” or “a 150,000-ton ship ran aground” don’t mean very much to me on their own. Is that a large ship? Does 60 billion miles take you outside the Solar System? How much is $21 billion compared to the overall budget? (That last question is why I made my money chart.)
A friend of mine, Glen Chiacchieri, has created a Chrome extension to help solve this problem: Dictionary of Numbers. It searches the text in your browser for quantities it understands and inserts contextual statements in brackets. It might turn the phrase “315 million people” into “315 million people [≈ the population of the United States]“.
As Glen explains, he once read an article about US wildfires which mentioned that the largest fire of the year had burned “300,000 acres.” This didn’t mean much to Glen:
I have no idea how much 300,000 acres is [...] But we need to understand this number to answer the obvious question: how much of the United States was on fire? This is why I made Dictionary of Numbers.
Dictionary of Numbers helpfully informs me that 300,000 acres is about the area of LA or Hong Kong.
Wolfram|Alpha provides a lookup service like this, but you have to load the site and type in the quantity you’re curious about, which I never remember to do. (It’s also often short on good points of comparison.)
Dictionary of Numbers is a new project, so it’s got its share of glitches and rendering hiccups; it’s very much a work in progress. You can submit bug reports, feedback, and suggestions for data sources via a link on the project’s website.
I think these kinds of tools are a great idea, and I want to encourage them. Intelligence is all about context, and when computers get better at providing it, they make us smarter.
The extension can even be surprisingly funny, like when it seems to be making an oblique suggestion for how to solve a problem—e.g. “The telescope has been criticized for its budget of $200 million [≈ Mitt Romney net worth].” It can also come across as unexpectedly judgmental. Glen told me about complaint he got from a user: “I installed your extension and then forgot about it … until I logged into my bank account. Apparently my total balance is equal to the cost of a low-end bicycle. Thanks.”
You can get Dictionary of Numbers here.
Categories: Blogs
Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom read-aloud part 07
Cory Doctorow - 2013, May 13 - 14:27
As I mentioned in my March Locus column, I'm celebrating the tenth anniversary of Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom by m planning a prequel. volume As part of that, planning'I going to read aloud the entire text of that first book into the podcast, making notes on the book as I go. Here's part seven.
Mastering by John Taylor Williams: [email protected]
John Taylor Williams is a audiovisual and multimedia producer based in Washington, DC and the co-host of the Living Proof Brew Cast. Hear him wax poetic over a pint or two of beer by visiting livingproofbrewcast.com. In his free time he makes "Beer Jewelry" and "Odd Musical Furniture." He often "meditates while reading cookbooks."
Categories: Blogs
Senior European Officials Visit IAEA Labs in Seibersdorf
IAEA - 2013, May 13 - 09:10
Ambassadors and other diplomats of European Union (EU) countries, senior European Commission (EC) staff and Ambassador Györgyi Martin Zanathy, the Head of the EU Delegation in Vienna, convened at the IAEA Laboratories in Seibersdorf, Austria, to receive in-depth briefings on the science conducted there and on the IAEA’s plans for modernisation of the laboratories on 14 May 2013.
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3D printed guns are going to create big legal precedents
Cory Doctorow - 2013, May 13 - 02:10
Categories: Blogs
3D printed guns and the law: will judges be able to think clearly about digital files when guns are involved?
Cory Doctorow - 2013, May 13 - 02:10
My latest Guardian column is "3D printed guns are going to create big legal precedents," and it looks at an underappreciated risk from 3D printed guns: that courts will be so freaked out by the idea of 3D printed guns that they'll issue reactionary decisions that are bad for the health of the Internet and its users:
More interesting is the destiny of the files describing 3D printed guns. These model-files have been temporarily removed from the internet at the behest of the US State Department, which is investigating the possibility that they violate the International Traffic in Arms Regulations. Wilson says that he's on safe ground here, because the regulations do not cover material in a library, and he says the internet is like a library. As this is taking place in the US, there's also the First Amendment to be considered, which limits government regulation of speech.
Here's where things get scary for me. Defense Distributed is headed for some important, possibly precedent-setting legal battles with the US government, and I'm worried that the fact that we're talking about guns here will cloud judges' minds. Bad cases made bad law, and it's hard to think of a more emotionally overheated subject area. So while I'd love to see a court evaluate whether the internet should be treated as a library in law, I'm worried that when it comes to guns, the judge may find himself framing the question in terms of whether a gun foundry should be treated as a library.
3D printed guns are going to create big legal precedents
Categories: Blogs
Rapture of the Nerds is a Campbell Award finalist
Cory Doctorow - 2013, May 11 - 11:00
Well, this is fabulous news: Rapture of the Nerds, the novel Charlie Stross and I published last year, is a finalist for the 2013 Campbell Award for best novel. It's in some truly outstanding company, too -- check out that shortlist!
Categories: Blogs
My Berlin talk: “It’s not a fax machine connect to a waffle iron”
Cory Doctorow - 2013, May 10 - 05:35
Here's the video of "It's not a fax machine connect to a waffle iron," the talk I gave at the Re:publica conference in Berlin this week: "Lawmakers treat the Internet like it's Telephone 2.0, the Second Coming of Video on Demand, or the World's Number One Porn Distribution Service, but it's really the nervous system of the 21st Century. Unless we stop the trend toward depraved indifference in Internet law, making – and freedom – will die."
re:publica 2013 - Cory Doctorow: It's not a fax machine connect to a waffle iron
Categories: Blogs
Video: Mark Carwardine Searches New Zealand for their Small Five
Another Chance to See - 2013, May 9 - 11:33
--- Originally published at http://www.anotherchancetosee.com
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Stephen Fry jokes about New Zealand bird names
Another Chance to See - 2013, May 9 - 11:32
--- Originally published at http://www.anotherchancetosee.com
Categories: Blogs
Pirate Cinema on the Locus Award ballot!
Cory Doctorow - 2013, May 8 - 22:26
The 2013 Locus Awards final ballot has been announced, and as ever, it is a fabulous guide signposting some of the very best work published science fiction and fantasy in the past year -- a perfect place to start your explorations of the year's books.
I am very honored to have been included on the ballot; my novel Pirate Cinema made the Best Young Adult novel list, which is a particularly strong category this year:
* The Drowned Cities, Paolo Bacigalupi (Little, Brown; Atom)
* Pirate Cinema, Cory Doctorow (Tor Teen)
* Railsea, China Miéville (Del Rey; Macmillan)
* Dodger, Terry Pratchett (Harper; Doubleday UK)
* The Girl Who Fell Beneath Fairyland and Led the Revels There, Catherynne M. Valente (Feiwel and Friends; Much-in-Little ’13)
See the full ballot after the jump.
SCIENCE FICTION NOVEL
* The Hydrogen Sonata, Iain M. Banks (Orbit US; Orbit UK)
* Captain Vorpatril’s Alliance, Lois McMaster Bujold (Baen)
* Caliban’s War, James S.A. Corey (Orbit US; Orbit UK)
* 2312, Kim Stanley Robinson (Orbit US; Orbit UK)
* Redshirts, John Scalzi (Tor; Gollancz)
FANTASY NOVEL
* The Killing Moon, N.K. Jemisin (Orbit US; Orbit UK)
* The Drowning Girl, Caitlín R. Kiernan (Roc)
* Glamour in Glass, Mary Robinette Kowal (Tor)
* Hide Me Among the Graves, Tim Powers (Morrow; Corvus)
* The Apocalypse Codex, Charles Stross (Ace; Orbit UK)
YOUNG ADULT BOOK
* The Drowned Cities, Paolo Bacigalupi (Little, Brown; Atom)
* Pirate Cinema, Cory Doctorow (Tor Teen)
* Railsea, China Miéville (Del Rey; Macmillan)
* Dodger, Terry Pratchett (Harper; Doubleday UK)
* The Girl Who Fell Beneath Fairyland and Led the Revels There, Catherynne M. Valente (Feiwel and Friends; Much-in-Little ’13)
FIRST NOVEL
* Throne of the Crescent Moon, Saladin Ahmed (DAW; Gollancz ’13)
* vN, Madeline Ashby (Angry Robot US; Angry Robot UK)
* Seraphina, Rachel Hartman (Random House; Doubleday UK)
* The Games, Ted Kosmatka (Del Rey; Titan)
* Alif the Unseen, G. Willow Wilson (Grove; Corvus)
NOVELLA
* “In the House of Aryaman, a Lonely Signal Burns”, Elizabeth Bear (Asimov’s 1/12)
* On a Red Station, Drifting, Aliette de Bodard (Immersion)
* After the Fall, Before the Fall, During the Fall, Nancy Kress (Tachyon)
* “The Stars Do Not Lie”, Jay Lake (Asimov’s 10-11/12)
* The Boolean Gate, Walter Jon Williams (Subterranean)
NOVELETTE
* “Faster Gun”, Elizabeth Bear (Tor.com 8/12)
* “The Girl-Thing Who Went Out for Sushi”, Pat Cadigan (Edge of Infinity)
* “Close Encounters”, Andy Duncan (The Pottawatomie Giant & Other Stories)
* “Fake Plastic Trees”, Caitlín R. Kiernan (After)
* “The Lady Astronaut of Mars”, Mary Robinette Kowal (Rip-Off!)
SHORT STORY
* “The Deeps of the Sky”, Elizabeth Bear (Edge of Infinity)
* “Immersion”, Aliette de Bodard (Clarkesworld 6/12)
* “Mantis Wives”, Kij Johnson (Clarkesworld 8/12)
* “Elementals”, Ursula K. Le Guin (Tin House Fall ’12)
* “Mono No Aware”, Ken Liu (The Future Is Japanese)
ANTHOLOGY
* After, Ellen Datlow & Terri Windling, eds. (Hyperion)
* The Year’s Best Science Fiction: Twenty-ninth Annual Collection, Gardner Dozois, ed. (St. Martin’s Griffin; Robinson as The Mammoth Book of Best New SF 25)
* The Future Is Japanese, Nick Mamatas & Masumi Washington, eds. (Haikasoru)
* Edge of Infinity, Jonathan Strahan, ed. (Solaris US; Solaris UK)
* The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year: Volume Six, Jonathan Strahan, ed. (Night Shade)
COLLECTION
* The Best of Kage Baker, Kage Baker (Subterranean)
* Shoggoths in Bloom, Elizabeth Bear (Prime)
* At the Mouth of the River of Bees, Kij Johnson (Small Beer)
* The Unreal and the Real: Selected Stories Volume One: Where on Earth and Volume Two: Outer Space, Inner Lands, Ursula K. Le Guin (Small Beer)
* The Dragon Griaule, Lucius Shepard (Subterranean)
MAGAZINE
* Asimov’s
* F&SF
* Tor.com
* Clarkesworld
* Subterranean
PUBLISHER
* Tor
* Subterranean Press
* Orbit
* Baen
* Angry Robot
EDITOR
* John Joseph Adams
* Ellen Datlow
* Gardner Dozois
* Jonathan Strahan
* Ann & Jeff VanderMeer
ARTIST
* Donato Giancola
* Stephan Martiniere
* John Picacio
* Shaun Tan
* Michael Whelan
NON-FICTION
* An Exile on Planet Earth, Brian Aldiss (Bodleian Library)
* Science Fiction: The 101 Best Novels 1985-2010, Damien Broderick & Paul Di Filippo, eds. (NonStop)
* Distrust That Particular Flavor, William Gibson (Putnam)
* The Cambridge Companion to Fantasy Literature, Edward James & Farah Mendlesohn, eds. (Cambridge University Press)
* Some Remarks, Neal Stephenson (Morrow)
ART BOOK
* Spectrum 19: The Best in Contemporary Fantastic Art, Cathy Fenner & Arnie Fenner, eds. (Underwood)
* Trolls, Brian Froud & Wendy Froud (Abrams)
* Tarzan: The Centennial Celebration, Scott Tracy Griffin (Titan)
* J.R.R. Tolkien: The Art of The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien, Wayne G. Hammond & Christina Scull, eds. (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt)
* Steampunk: An Illustrated History, Brian J. Robb (Aurum)
Categories: Blogs
Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom read-aloud part 06
Cory Doctorow - 2013, May 6 - 10:28
As I mentioned in my March Locus column, I'm celebrating the tenth anniversary of Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom by m planning a prequel. volume As part of that, planning'I going to read aloud the entire text of that first book into the podcast, making notes on the book as I go. Here's part six.
Mastering by John Taylor Williams: [email protected]
John Taylor Williams is a audiovisual and multimedia producer based in Washington, DC and the co-host of the Living Proof Brew Cast. Hear him wax poetic over a pint or two of beer by visiting livingproofbrewcast.com. In his free time he makes "Beer Jewelry" and "Odd Musical Furniture." He often "meditates while reading cookbooks."
Categories: Blogs
Tim Wu and I talk networks, policy and the future
Cory Doctorow - 2013, May 6 - 09:40
Slate's "Stranger Than Fiction" podcast has just aired its second episode: a discussion between Tim Wu (a cyberlawyer, Internet scholar and good egg) and me (MP3)! Future installments will include talks with Kim Stanley Robinson and Margaret Atwood (as well as others) -- the inaugural episode featured Tim in discussion with Neal Stephenson.
Categories: Blogs
IronMan 3 was “Unbelievable”… but not in a good way.
Steve Gibson - 2013, May 4 - 11:16
My two-cent take on IronMan 3:
This was a Disney/Marvel collaboration. Perhaps one problem was that it was too much Disney and insufficient Marvel.
The thing I was conscious of at many points throughout the movie, was that in ridiculously violent fights between unarmored and unprotected simple flesh and blood humans… no one gets hurt. In Road Runner cartoons, when the anvil flattens the Coyote, it’s quite funny due to its ludicrous overstatement. But the real parts of a movie involving humans — which are intended to be believable — really need to remain believable… or it’s asking too much from a mature audience.
As a Science Fiction lover, I am more than willing to suspend my disbelief for the sake of immersion into a new idea. I loved the first IronMan, and have watched it many times. So I will gleefully imbue a robotic suit with any levels of strength and power the story may require. That’s fine. Bring it on. Thrill me. But I know the limitations of an unaided human body. We all have one. And what I saw far too much of, against human flesh, was a level of coyote-flattening violence that was utter nonsense.
Despite the fact that I have no doubt IronMan 3 will break US domestic box office records, as it already has overseas, I think that “Oblivion” was the far better movie so far this summer.
/Steve. (@SGgrc and http://www.grc.com)
Categories: Blogs
IAEA Regional Workshop Details Support for Pacific Islands States
IAEA - 2013, May 3 - 10:24
12 Pacific Island States took part in an IAEA workshop that explained the developmental benefits to be obtained through nuclear science and applications in human health, water resource management, food and agriculture, marine and coastal environment protection, and climate change studies.
Categories: Blogs
Easy win for publishing: network and systematize PR and marketing
Cory Doctorow - 2013, May 3 - 01:33
My latest Locus column, "Improving Book Publicity in the 21st Century," addresses the lack of automation and management in traditional publishing an publicity, and suggests some simple and cheap ways that publishers could join up the way its editorial, marketing a PR departments communicate with reviewers and other publicity outlets to save money and score more PR for their writers.
Right now, this stuff all lives in separate word-processing files and spreadsheets in different departments’ hands, which results in all sorts of bizarre occurrences that I see firsthand.
There’s the trilogy whose first volume I blurbed, and whose first two volumes I glowingly reviewed – and I sold a ton of each. The publisher didn’t send me book three for review, even though it had a quote of mine on the front cover, the back cover, and the jacket-flap. They didn’t even tell me it was out – by the time I saw it in a store, it had been out for a month, and my review showed up weeks after the book’s publicity push was over.
I know how that happened: the cover quotes came from editorial and were sent to marketing, which had them in a word-processing document. When PR brainstormed people to send review copies to, they forgot to include me, so it fell through the cracks.
There’s the graphic novel series, now in up to something like 17 volumes. I’ve given every book a positive review, and all the new volumes have quotes from me on the cover. I never get review copies of this one – I don’t even get a notice from the PR department when a new volume is out. But the same PR department has sent me something like nine volumes of another series, none of which I’ve ever reviewed. If I don’t review book one, that means I either didn’t like it, or didn’t even bother with it because it looked so unpromising. Having skipped book one, you can be certain I won’t review book two. This same publisher sends me mountains of single-issue comics, even though I’ve never reviewed one of those.
Improving Book Publicity in the 21st Century
Categories: Blogs
JPEG and PNG – lossy and lossless image compression
Matlab Image processing blog - 2013, May 2 - 13:45
I was reviewing enhancement requests recently when I came across this one: Add support for a 'Quality' parameter when using imwrite to write a PNG file, just like you can currently do when writing a JPEG file.
Well, there is actually a pretty good reason why there is no 'Quality' parameter for writing PNG files, but it's not an obvious reason unless you know more about the differences between various image compression methods.
A very important characteristic of a compression method is whether it is lossless or lossy. With a lossless compression method, the original data can be recovered exactly. When you make a "zip" file on your computer, this is what you certainly expect.
Here's an example: I can use gzip to compress the MATLAB script file I'm using for this blog post.
gzip('lossless_lossy.m'); dir('lossless_lossy.*') lossless_lossy.m lossless_lossy.m.gzLet's compare their sizes to see if the output of gzip is really compressed.
d1 = dir('lossless_lossy.m'); d1.bytes ans = 4098 d2 = dir('lossless_lossy.m.gz'); d2.bytes ans = 1785Indeed, the compressed does actually have fewer bytes. Can we get the original file back exactly?
gunzip('lossless_lossy.m.gz','./tmp') isequal(fileread('lossless_lossy.m'),fileread('./tmp/lossless_lossy.m')) ans = 1Yes.
Let's switch to image formats. The PNG image format uses lossless compression. When you save image data to a PNG file, you can read the file back in and get back the original pixels, unchanged. For a sample image I'll use my imzoneplate function on the MATLAB Central File Exchange.
I = im2uint8(imzoneplate); imshow(I)Let's write I out to a PNG file, read it back in, and see if the pixels are the same.
imwrite(I,'zoneplate.png'); I2 = imread('zoneplate.png'); isequal(I,I2) ans = 1OK, now let's try the same experiment using JPEG.
imwrite(I,'zoneplate.jpg') I2j = imread('zoneplate.jpg'); isequal(I,I2j) ans = 0No, the pixels are not equal! It turns out the JPEG is a lossy image compression format. (Full disclosure: there is a lossless variant of JPEG, but it is rarely used.)
Why in the world would we use a compression format that doesn't preserve the original data? Because by giving up on exact data recovery and by taking advantage of properties of human visual perception, we can make the stored file a lot smaller. Let's compare the file sizes of the PNG file with the JPEG file.
z1 = dir('zoneplate.png'); num_bytes_png = z1.bytes num_bytes_png = 218864 z2 = dir('zoneplate.jpg'); num_bytes_jpeg = z2.bytes num_bytes_jpeg = 72660The JPEG file is only one-third the size of the PNG file! But it looks almost exactly the same.
imshow('zoneplate.jpg')So, what about that 'Quality' parameter that I mentioned at the top of today's post? It turns out that we can make the JPEG file even smaller if we are willing to put up with some visible distortion in the image. Let's try a quality factor of 25. (The default is 75 on a scale of 0 to 100.)
imwrite(I,'zoneplate_25.jpg','Quality',25) I2j_25 = imread('zoneplate_25.jpg'); imshow(I2j_25)You can see some distortion, especially around the high-frequency part of the pattern. How about the file size?
z3 = dir('zoneplate_25.jpg'); z3.bytes ans = 39544That's about 54% of the size of the zoneplate.jpg.
Sometimes people think they can get "lossless JPEG" by using a 'Quality' factor of 100, but unfortunately that isn't the case. Let's check it:
imwrite(I,'zoneplate_100.jpg','Quality',100) I2j_100 = imread('zoneplate_100.jpg'); isequal(I,I2j_100) ans = 0So there you go -- that's why there's no 'Quality' parameter when writing PNG files. PNG files are always perfect!
When I write blog posts, sometimes I use PNG image files and sometimes I use JPEG. My choice is based on what kind of graphics I have in that particular post. And that's a blog topic for another day.
\n'); d.write(code_string); // Add copyright line at the bottom if specified. if (copyright.length > 0) { d.writeln(''); d.writeln('%%'); if (copyright.length > 0) { d.writeln('% _' + copyright + '_'); } } d.write('\n'); d.title = title + ' (MATLAB code)'; d.close(); } -->
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Baby Spinach Salad with Halloumi Cheese
Green City Acres - 2013, May 1 - 14:34
As grateful as I am for the kale & sprout salads that sustain us throughout the winter, they can get a little tiring. The first spring salads are special because their a sign that summer is coming. I can’t wait for summer, but late February/early March is an exciting time to be savoured. Our seeds are sprouting, and Kelowna is stirring to life. This baby spinach salad is made heartier with the addition of Halloumi cheese, a unique, savoury Greek cheese that sautés and grills very nicely.
Ingredients:
Local Fresh Ingredient: Fresh baby spinach (We used 1/2 lb for 2 big servings), 1 cup sour cream (or Greek yogurt).
Local Preserved Ingredients: 1/2 tbs white wine vinegar, 1 tbs extra virgin olive oil, 2 hand fulls sun dried tomatoes. I dried small tomato “bits” last year. They’re a nice substitution for bacon bits and are a nicer size for salads and pasta.
Imported Ingredients: Raw button mushrooms (sliced),
1/2 tbs lemon juice, salt and pepper, 1 tbs grainy dijon mustard, 1/2 block (250g) Halloumi cheese cubed.
Directions: Throw washed spinach in bowl with sun dried tomatoes and mushrooms. Heat up some EVOO in skillet, and saute cubes of Halloumi until golden brown and crispy (5-7 mins over high heat). You can find halloumi in most delis, but it can be replaced with feta (just skip the sautéing step). Add to bowl and toss well. For dressing, whisk together sour cream, white wine vinegar, olive oil, lemon juice with a dash of salt and pepper. I like to use a mason jar, because you can seal and refrigerate your dressing for later.
That’s all there is to it!
Categories: Blogs
Good Advice
IAEA - 2013, April 30 - 09:12
To encourage more young women to pursue careers in the sciences later in life and become interested in the work of the Agency, the IAEA hosted Take Your Daughter to Work Day on 25 April 2013.
Categories: Blogs
