Yes. With apologies to a lot of very disappointed friends, I'm now on Twitter. I can see their heads shaking in disapproval and their sentiments are definitely hard to capture in 140 characters or less.

**Clarification: This blog is not going anywhere. Twitter is simply an added component. Irtiqa will continue to function as is. (sorry for the confusion)

So here is a brief justification explanation of what I expect to have there:
Twitter will be an extension of the themes that we address here on Irtiqa. However, I usually pick one article/topic per day to post/comment on, and I try to stay close to the topic (same with Nidhal's weekly posts). So I hope to expand the base of topic on Twitter (3-5 tweets per day) to include more stories related to science & religion and the varieties of interactions of Muslims with various aspects of modernity (and not just science). As you can guess, Pakistan, Turkey, Egypt, Malaysia, and the Muslim diaspora in Europe will be a major focus. History of science and science-fiction are, of course, the gravy. And heck. If you don't like what I'm saying, it will be over in a short sentence. Painless.

And no Lady Gaga! I must admit I did think about the name @DrGaga - but changed my mind. Psst...this name is still available.

So if you are inclined to give it a shot, you can now also find me on Twitter here. It is free, and I think you can check it without even getting registered.

Of course, Irtiqa posts will continue as is.

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This is a weekly post by Nidhal Guessoum (see his earlier posts here). Nidhal is an astrophysicist and Professor of Physics at American University of Sharjah and is the author of Islam's Quantum Question: Reconciling Muslim Tradition and Modern Science.

This is a light post, for several reasons. First because I am right in the middle of finals week; I have already graded more than 30 papers, and by the end of the week I will have to do another 60 or so., not counting many term papers. Secondly, as you’ll see, although the content below is almost all related to science, it is in a new, fun format, though it is done in a very creative and masterful way. Third, because much of the content below relates to Carl Sagan, and you all know that he is Salman’s hero, so… wink.

It was actually a student of mine, from the introductory astronomy course, who brought these “Symphony of Science” clips to my attention. Although many of these can be found on youtube, there is a website dedicated to this work, and it explains that it is “a musical project headed by John Boswell, designed to deliver scientific knowledge and philosophy in musical form.”

The clips, which are about 3 to 4 minutes long, take statements from contemporary scientists who have proven themselves particularly eloquent in conveying the greatness of science (discoveries and methods), and then meshes them into a song by adding electronically remixed music and sound-working the utterances to come out as if they were sung by their authors. Among these great science communicators, one can find Carl Sagan prominently featured, but also Richard Feynman, Stephen Hawking, Jane Goodall, Richard Dawkins, David Attenborough, and others. It’s the usual skeptics’ refrain of “the universe is awe-inspiring and that’s a good-enough spirituality”, though in these clips only the first part is emphasized. It will not escape anyone that all the scientists and communicators featured there are skeptics, if not staunch atheists. No matter, the clips are very well made, and their content is in no way objectionable, even to very religious people, on the contrary; they could also be described as “hymns to creation”…

Among those clips, my favorite ones are:

and

Oh, and while we are it, don’t miss this great piece: ‘The Matrix vs. Carl Sagan’, though to fully appreciate that one, you may first wish to refresh your memory with the original one: Carl Sagan Apple Pie (introduced by Michael Dowd)… Enjoy!

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Is the body of the famous 16th century Ottoman architect, Mimar Sinan, headless? Well, at least that is the claim of a professor at Marmara University (tip from Al Biruni. Yup, he is still active). In theory, this should be an easy thing to check since we know where he is buried. In practice, though, one may not want to dig up a body after four centuries just for the heck of it (Unless there is a good reason: see this earlier post on digging up Copernicus). But Sinan is not just any other architect. He was responsible for, among numerous other works, the absolutely spectacular Süleymaniye Mosque in Istanbul and Selimiye Mosque in Edirne. If you haven't been to Suleymaniye Mosque in person, check out this wonderful virtual walking tour - and you will get some idea of the architecture. The mosque, at least until last October, was closed for major renovations, and it is expected to open some time this year.

But why might Sinan's head be missing in the first place? Usually, one expects head to stay with the body. Well, surprise: it might be related to Turkish identity and politics:

According to Professor Selçuk Mülayim from Marmara University, the corpse of Mimar Sinan, best known for the 16th-century Süleymaniye Mosque in Istanbul, was taken from its modest tomb next to that building Aug. 1, 1935, in order to measure the famed architect’s skull.

Documents show that the team, headed by Turkish Historical Society Director Hasan Cemil Çambel, society member Şevket Aziz Kansu and historian Afet İnan, conducted the excavation in an hour, Mülayim told the Hürriyet Daily News & Economic Review recently.

“The purpose was to prove he was an ethnic Turk,” the professor said. “Kansu took measurements with compasses and other tools and from these measurements it was decided that he was an ethnic Turk.”

At the time of the team’s foray into the tomb, there was a rising appreciation of Mimar Sinan in Europe, where people were increasingly claiming that the great architect could not have been Turkish, Mülayim said. “The excavation was an answer to these claims.”

To this day, few members of the Turkish public know that the man hailed as the greatest of Ottoman architects was actually a Muslim convert of Armenian origin.

Following the excavation of Sinan’s tomb, the Turkish Historical Society team took its findings to Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, the founder of the Turkish Republic. “He refused to look at the results, saying, ‘Instead of measuring his skull, make a statue of the architect,’” Mülayim said.

The idea that Sinan’s skull is missing from his tomb is not a new one, but one that many experts have avoided repeating in public.

Great. Now we that we have tied Sinan's head to race and politics, I'm sure all of this will go well. In any case, read the full article here.

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My family begs me to make this recipe on a weekly basis.  Sometimes I make it with chocolate chips sometimes with carrots, sometimes with mashed banana etc.  You really can add anything you like to this.  Also it's pretty much guilt free since it's fairly low in sugar, no oil and 2/3 whole wheat flour.  You don't miss any of what I took out....it's scrumptous!

Ingredients:

3 eggs

1 cup unsweetened applesauce

1 1/4 granulated sugar 

2 cups grated zucchini

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

2 cups whole wheat flour (King Aurthur flour is best)

1 cup all-purpose white flour 

3 teaspoons ground cinnamon

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/4 teaspoon baking powder

1 teaspoon salt

1 cup semi sweet chocolate chips

Preparation:

Preheat oven to 325 degrees F Spray two 8x4 inch loaf pans with non stick spray. In a large bowl, beat eggs until light and frothy. Mix in applesauce and sugar. Stir in zucchini and vanilla. Combine flours, cinnamon, baking soda, baking powder, salt and chocolate chips; stir into the egg mixture. Divide batter into prepared pans. Bake for about 1 hour, or until done.

Linked to Julies Eats and Treats Zucchini Blog Hop

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I caught myself smiling alone remembering my first month in the college. I always carried the campus map with me every day because I always got lost. My new campus is totally different from the campus in my home country. It's very beautiful but very big. I couldn't recognize all the buildings and lanes there.

During orientation days, I was always afraid to walk around, even when I went to
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The assassination of Salman Taseer and, perhaps more importantly, the reaction to it, has raised questions about Pakistan's "silent majority" (see earlier posts here, here and here). It has always been assumed that this group is liberal and sympathetic to a secular form of government etc. But so far what has been heard (or the continued silence in the wake of educated people celebrating the assassination), suggests otherwise. Or - people are quick to blame something or somebody else. Media is the new bogie man. If it is not the media, then it is the US involvement in Afghanistan - and that it is the reaction that is responsible for it. Even if all of this has played a role, people still have to stand up and condemn the assassination, those behind it, and those celebrating it. There are indeed some who have voiced criticism. There have been some excellent articles in Dawn and The Express Tribune, but is hard to know how representative these voices are. For present, here is an interview with Pervez Hoodbhoy, where he talks about the current situation in Pakistan. Before I start getting the usual e-mails or comments, no - he is not Pakistan's enemy nor does he hate Pakistan. The fact that discussion on his articles usually start with vitriol, is troubling to me. He has a keen sense of Pakistani politics. Sure one can disagree with views - that disagreement has to be based on his arguments and not ad hominem. He is also a part of Pakistan and I deeply appreciate his views - even when I disagree with them. I think he is mostly on the mark in this interview with Viewpoint:

The murder of Governor Salman Taseer, who opposed Pakistan’s blasphemy law, has shocked the world. But in Pakistan the killer has become a hero for a sizeable section of society. Why?

In a society dominated by traditional religious values, heroism often means committing some violent and self-destructive act for preserving honor. Although Governor Taseer was not accused of blasphemy, his crime was to seek presidential pardon for an illiterate peasant Christian woman accused of blasphemy by some Muslim neighbours. Taseer’s intervention clearly crossed the current limits of toleration. With no party support, he went at it alone.

Malik Mumtaz Qadri – the official security guard who pumped 22 bullets into the man he was deputed to protect – is not the first such hero. The 19-year old illiterate who killed the author of the book “Rangeela Rasool” in the 1920’s, and was then executed by the British, was held in the highest esteem by the founders of Pakistan, Muhammad Iqbal and Muhammad Ali Jinnah. It is reported that Iqbal, regarded as Islam’s pre-eminent 20^th century philosopher, placed the body in the grave with tears in his eyes and said: "This young man left us, the educated men, behind." Ghazi Ilm-e-Deen is venerated by a mausoleum over his grave in Lahore.

In his court testimony, Taseer’s assassin proudly declared that he was executing Allah’s will. Hundreds of lawyers – made famous by the Black Coat Revolution that restored Pakistan’s Chief Justice – showered him with rose petals while he was in police custody. Two hundred lawyers signed a pledge vowing to defend him for free. Significantly, Qadri is a Barelvi Muslim belonging to the Dawat-e-Islami, and 500 clerics of this faith supported his action in a joint declaration. They said that those who sympathized with Taseer deserved similar punishment.

Significantly most of these mullahs are part of the Sunni Tehreek and are supposedly anti-Taliban moderates. Indeed, one of their leaders, Maulana Sarfaraz Naeemi, was blown up by a Taliban suicide bomber in June 2009 after he spoke out against suicide bombings. But now these “moderates” have joined hands with their attackers. Jointly they rule Pakistan’s streets today, while a cowardly and morally bankrupt government cringes and caves in to their every demand.

Pakistani voters have always voted for secular-leaning parties but it appears that today the religious parties actually represent popular discourse. Do you concur?

Yes, I do. Those who claim that Pakistan’s silent majority is fundamentally secular and tolerant may be clutching at straws. They argue that the religious parties don’t get the popular vote and so cannot really be popular. But this is wishful thinking. The mullah parties are unsuccessful only because they are geared for street politics, not electoral politics. They also lack charismatic leadership and have bitter internal rivalries. However the victory of the MMA after 911 shows that they are capable of closing ranks. It is also perfectly possible that a natural leader will emerge and cause an electoral landslide in the not too distant future.

But even without winning elections, the mullah parties are immensely more powerful in determining how you and I live than election-winning parties like the PPP and ANP. For a long time the religious right has dictated what we can or cannot teach in our public and private schools. No government ever had the guts to dilute the hate materials being forced down young throats. They also dictate what you and I can wear, eat, or drink. Their unchallenged power has led to Pakistan’s cultural desertification because they violently oppose music, dance, theatre, art, and intellectual inquiry.

To be sure there are scattered islands of normality in urban Pakistan. But these are shrinking. Yes, the Baluch nationalists are secular, and so is the ethnically-driven MQM in Karachi. But these constitute a tiny fraction of the population.

The government has capitulated. The prime minister has announced not to touch the blasphemy laws. Does this mean that religious fanatics can dictate their terms even without any parliamentary representation?

It is indeed a complete abdication. When the bearded ones brought out 50,000 charged people onto the streets of Karachi, a terrified government instantly sought negotiations with them. Even before that happened, the current interior minister – Rahman Malik, a venal hack and as crooked as they come – promptly declared that he’d personally gun down a blasphemer.

The government’s pants are soaking wet. In fact, so wet that the ruling party dumped Taseer – who was their own high-ranking member – after the murder. There’s talk now of getting American guards for Zardari since his own guards may be untrustworthy. Sherry Rahman, the brave parliamentarian who dared to table a bill to reform the blasphemy law, is now bunkered down. She is said to be receiving two death threats an hour. Significantly, the Army high command has made no public statement on the assassination, although it is vocal on much else.

On the role of US occupation in Afghanistan:

Many in Pakistan like Imran Khan, a cricket star turned politician, blame the recent rise of extremism on the US occupation of Afghanistan. Is that the root cause in your opinion?

If the US had never come to Afghanistan, Pakistan would not be the violent mess that it is today. So there is an element of truth in this claim, but no more than an element. Let me give you an analogy: imagine lots of dry wood and a lighted match. The US-led anti-Soviet war was that match. But the combustible material is that dangerous conservatism which accumulated over time. The strength of the Islamist parties vastly increased after Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto kow-towed to them after 1973-4. This was 5-6 years before the Soviet invasion so one can scarcely blame America for that.

Yes, the West did set dry wood on fire. But the staggering quantity of wood comes from the rotting mass of Pakistan’s state and society. Ours is an apartheid society where the rich treat the poor like dirt, the justice system does not work, education is as rotten as it can be, and visible corruption goes unpunished. Add to all this a million mullahs in a million mosques who exploit people’s frustrations. You then have the explanation for today’s catastrophic situation.

Of course I would love to see the Americans out of Afghanistan. The sooner they can withdraw – without precipitating a 1996 style Taliban massacre – the better. But let’s realize that US withdrawal will not end Pakistan’s problems. Those fighting the Americans aren’t exactly Vietnamese-type socialists or nationalists. The Taliban-types want a full cultural revolution: beards, burqas, 5 daily prayers, no music, no art, no entertainment, and no contact with modernity except for getting its weapons.

And here is the crux of the matter. Perhaps, I'm not surprised by his downer answer below...and currently I don't see an easy way out of this impending mess:

What do you think is the way to stem the rising tide of religious extremism in Pakistan?

If you want the truth: the answer is, nothing. Our goose is cooked. Sometimes there is no way to extinguish a forest fire until it burns itself out. Ultimately there will be nothing left to burn. But well before the last liberal is shot or silenced, the mullahs will be gunning for each other in a big way. Mullah-inspired bombers have already started blowing up shrines and mosques of the opposing sect. The internet is flooded with gory photographs of chopped-up body parts belonging to their rivals. Qadri, the assassin, admitted his inspiration to murder came from a cleric. So you can also expect that Muslim clerics will enthusiastically kill other Muslim clerics. Eventually we could have the situation that prevailed during Europe’s 30-Year War.

To save Pakistan, what miracles shall we ask of Allah? Here’s my personal list: First, that the Pakistan army stops seeing India as enemy number one and starts seeing extremism as a mortal threat. Second, that Zardari’s government is replaced by one that is less corrupt, more capable of governance, and equipped with both the will and legitimacy to challenge religious fascism. And, third, that peace somehow comes to Afghanistan.

Read the full interview here. Also check out more articles on Viewpoint.

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This is the best picture I'm going to get because my husband decided to eat one when I was in the middle of styling and I walked away for half a second.  He said...."who's eating these??" as he rolled one in the sauce. UGH!

Ingredients:
1 Can(16.3 ounce size) large refrigerated biscuits (I've also used pizza dough)
8 frozen cooked Italian meatballs, thawed, each cut in half
2 sticks (1 oz size) string cheese, each cut into individual pieces
1 tablespoon grated Parmesan cheese
1/2 teaspoon Italian seasoning
1/4 teaspoon garlic powder
1 cup spaghetti sauce, heated

Preparation:

Heat oven to 375 degrees

Separate dough into individual biscuits. Separate each biscuit into 2 layers. Press each biscuit layer to make a 3-inch round. Place 1 meatball half, cut side up, and 1 string cheese piece in center of each dough round. Wrap dough around meatball and cheese, pressing edges to seal. Place seam side down in a single layer in an ungreased 8- or 9-inch round pan. Sprinkle evenly with Parmesan cheese, Italian seasoning and garlic powder.

Bake for 20-25 minutes or until golden brown and biscuits are no longer doughy in center. Remove from pan.

Serve warm with warm spaghetti sauce for dipping.

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Everyday Dinners

This is one of those age old recipes that our mother used to make for us all the time when we were growing up. It is super easy and yum!! My kids LOVE this dish. They were so happy when they heard that I was making it. It is great made with a simple side dish like plain rice, orzo, or quinoa (I added some confettied veggies to mine) so that you can pour some Hawaiian chicken sauce right over the top. I kid you not that my daughter had her hands on the plate wiping up all the sauce so she could then proceed to lick her fingers clean. :)

Ingredients:

1 Bottle of BBQ sauce
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 can of pineapple chunks w/ 1/2 cup of the juice
1-2 pounds of chicken pieces

Preparation:

Mix all ingredients together pour over chicken pieces. Bake for 1-1 1/2 hours at 400 degrees basting chicken every 20-30 minutes.
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It is unclear which ways things will be going in Tunisia. Students were some some of the early protesters against the government. But who will fill in the power vacuum? Things are changing at a breathtaking pace. At least the ban on political parties has been lifted. So here are a couple of items of interest for this blog:

Benjamin Geer pointed to this analysis of the role of New Media in Tunisia's recent events, where Marc Lynch quite accurately reminds us of the influence of Al Jazeera, in addition to Facebook, Twitter, etc:

I'd point to one other aspect of this which often gets overlooked. Al Jazeera and the new media ecosystem did not only spread information -- they facilitated the framing of the events and a robust public debate about their meaning. Events do not speak for themselves. For them to have political meaning they need to be interpreted, placed into a particular context and imbued with significance. Arabs collectively understood these events quite quickly as part of a broader Arab narrative of reform and popular protest ---the "Al Jazeera narrative" of an Arab public challenging authoritarian Arab regimes and U.S. foreign policy alike. Events in Tunisia had meaning for Jordan, for Lebanon, for Yemen, for Egypt because they were framed and understood within this collective Arab narrative. From Al Jazeera's talk shows to internet forums to the cafes where people talked them out face to face, Tunisia became common focal point for the Arab political debate and identity.

And Muhammed Yahia at House of Wisdom thinks that such a Tunisia-style change is unlikely in other North African countries:   

Now this is something that normally doesn't happen in the Middle East, and all countries are eying the small nation of Tunisia, wondering if the same could happen elsewhere, such as in Algeria. Egypt, Jordan, or Saudi Arabia.

The short answer is "probably not."

The longer answer would explain why. Tunisia is already a well-educated country. It has the best education system compared to its neighbours. That is why when the call came for a nationwide movement amongst the educated, there were enough to carry the event through.

By contrast, Egypt, a country with a president in power since 1981, has a 30% illiteracy rate. The other, educated 70% have had a very poor education that many of them are regarded as illiterate too. Calls for action in Egypt on social networks such as Facebook usually bring together a handful of people protesting the situation. This is not enough to send ripples through the rest of the country such as what happened in Tunisia. There just aren't enough influential intellectuals to motivate people. The lack of education means academia are not likely to carry a revolt or uprising in the populous country. Others might, but not the academics.

Algeria had large street protests a couple of weeks ago, probably inspired by the Tunisian experience but these quickly died out after promises from the ruling party that the dismal conditions will change. The same happened in Jordan as well.

So should we be expecting a domino effect in the region? Most experts say no. The situation in Tunisia was very special. Even though the quality of life there was much better than its neighbours, the lack of any social liberties was much worse than other Arab countries.

At this time, there is nothing to do but wait and see.

Perhaps. But I don't expect this status quo to last more than a couple of years. "Ha" - you say. Many of the regimes have been around for several decades. Yes, but I just don't see how these authoritarian regimes are going to control an educated (levels are increasing fast), tech-savvy and increasingly globalized youth (more than 60% are under 25 in the Middle East) with high unemployment rates. Something will have to give. The key question is not about the possibility of change, but rather what shape will this change take?

On a related topic:

Check out this Reuters analysis: Tunisia revolt makes Islamist threat ring hollow

and also After Tunisia, Arab World gives up on America (tip from Martin Riexinger).


Also see this earlier post:
How important is the internet in the Tunisia uprising?

UPDATE (1/21/11): 
Here is a reasonable oped by Roger Cohen. He wants to see Tunisia potentially following the Turkish model:

Unseemly, perhaps, but a lot is at stake. If Tunisia can become the Arab world’s Turkey, a functioning democracy where Islamism is part of the electoral mosaic rather than a threat to it, the tired refrain of all the Arab despots that they are the only bulwark against the jihadists will be seen for the self-serving lie it has become.

...

 Tunisia has a lot going for it in this quest: high levels of education, emancipated women encouraged over decades to use birth control, manageable size, and an Islamist movement that Michael Willis, a North Africa expert at St. Antony’s College, Oxford, described as “perhaps the mildest and most pragmatic around.” Their exiled leader, Rached Ghannouchi, has been multiplying conciliatory statements. A democratic Tunisia can do the Turkish thing.

There will, in coming weeks, be agents provocateurs bent on the worst, and the usual Muslim-hating naysayers. Arab democracy is threatening to a host of vested interests and glib clichés. It is also the only way out of the radicalizing impasse of Arab klepto-gerontocracies and, as such, a vital American interest.        

Read the full article here.        

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Hello, we are David & Sheri Burns, beekeepers operating Long Lane Honey Bee Farms. Feel free to contact us at: 217-427-2678. We’re having the time of our life enjoying helping others get started in beekeeping.
In today’s Lesson, I will be explaining the importance of rotating hive bodies in early spring. Before we start today’s lesson, let me invite you to two our our upcoming classes.






LESSON 93: ROTATING HIVE BODIES
It's important for beekeepers to be well prepared to properly manage hives that have survived the winter. In our last lesson we looked into a more detailed look at the Demaree swarm prevention method. Use this acronym to help you remember how to prepare:

Stimulate For Rapid Foraging Force
Prevent Swarms
Rotate Hive Bodies Inspect The Productivity Of The Queen
New Queen
Give 1:1 Sugar Water & Pollen Patties

It is important for the second year beekeeper to understand how the bees gradually move upward in the hive during the winter. During the winter the cluster gradually moves upward into the top hive body eating its way into stored honey above the cluster.

Normally the colony is found in the upper deep hive body during the start of spring, leaving the bottom deep hive body empty of bees and honey. The colony will expand in the upper hive body but will quickly become congested and will not likely move down.
The congestion can cause the colony to swarm. Therefore, by reversing the hive bodies the main nesting area is placed on the bottom, giving the colony room to expand into the upper hive body thus elevating congestion and helping to prevent swarming.
This is referred to by beekeepers as rotating the hive bodies or also as reversing the hive bodies. Many beekeepers become too eager to reverse the hive bodies and make a mistake so huge that it devastates the hive, and the colony usually never fully recovers. So let me give some practical advice on rotating the hive bodies.
First, DO NOT ROTATE TOO EARLY. Many beekeepers rotate the boxes too early in the season when the nights are still below freezing.

While a large hive may not be too effected, a smaller hive can suffer from being moved to the bottom. Why? When they were in the top of the hive, they enjoyed living in the pocket of heat that became trapped in the upper part of the hive. This provided assistance in heating the newly reared brood. If the hive bodies are rotated and the temperature drops drastically from a surprise spring cold snap, the colony is now on the
bottom and may have difficulty keeping the brood warm. In Illinois I make it a firm practice never to make splits or rotate hive bodies until after May 1. I simply want warmer nights.
Secondly, many beekeepers make the mistake of not fully inspecting and locating the nesting area. Before reversing the hive bodies it is essential that the hive be inspected. If any of the capped or uncapped brood dips down into the lower hive body, DO NOT REVERSE. If the brood/nesting area was in the upper half of the lower deep, and into the lower half of the upped deep then rotating will damage and break up the brood area and the hive will likely not recover throughout the summer.
So before rotating, make sure there is no brood in the lower hive body. It must be empty of brood, capped or uncapped. If there are some bees in the lower hive, but no brood, it is okay to rotate.

Rotating Hive Bodies & Cleaning Out Bees That Died In Winter

Let me summarize rotating hive bodies:
* Be sure the nights are warm enough not to chill the brood.
* Check and make certain all capped and uncapped brood is found in the upper hive body.
* To rotate, simply reverse the locations of the hive bodies. Place the bottom one on top and the tope one on the bottom.
...in our next article Inspecting The Productivity Of The Queen


Thanks for joining us today and here is our contact information:
Long Lane Honey Bee Farms
14556 N. 1020. E. Rd
Fairmount, IL 61841
(217) 427-2678
http://www.honeybeesonline.com/
EMAIL: david@honeybeesonline.com



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Karen made these and brought them to brunch.  My friend Farah makes very similar ones but dips the oreo truffles in white chocolate and drizzles the top with dark chocolate.  Either way they are sinfully delicious.

Ingredients:

1 16oz package of Oreos

1 8oz package of cream cheese
2 8oz packages semi-sweet chocolate, melted

Preparation:

Crush 9 of the cookies to fine crumbs in a food processor(or ziploc bag); reserve for later.  Crush remaining 36 cookies to fine crumbs; place in a medium bowl.  Add cream cheese and mix until well blended.  Roll cookie mixture into 42 balls about 1 inch in diameter.  Dip balls in chocolate and place on a wax paper covered baking sheet.  Sprinkle with reserved crumbs.  Refrigerate until firm about 1 hour. 

Store covered in refrigerator.

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The claim is that a young Galileo (24 years old) gained valuable insights about physics when he critiqued contemporary calculations of Dante's Inferno. At least this is what physicist Marl Peterson of Mount Holyoke College (woo hoo, a Five College link here) thinks. I don't know what other historians think about the claim - but it is certainly interesting. Probably Galileo was tired of people making stuff up and he was just trying to quash some of those ideas in a quantitative way (Yes, yes - Galileo would be quite busy even today...). Here is an article and a short video from Boston Globe about it (tip Open Culture):


From the article:

Ever since its 1314 publication, scholars had toiled to map the physical features of Dante’s Inferno — the blasted valleys and caverns, the roiling rivers of fire. What Galileo said, put simply, is that many commonly accepted dimensions did not stand up to mathematical scrutiny. Using complex geometrical analysis, he attacked a leading scholar’s version of the Inferno’s structure, pointing out that his description of the infernal architecture — such as the massive cylinders descending to the center of the Earth — would, in real life, collapse under their own weight. Later, Galileo realized the leading rival theory was wrong, too, and that even the greatest scholars of the time simply didn’t understand how real-world structures worked.

Debating the mechanics of the Inferno might sound like intellectual horseplay, the 16th-century equivalent of MIT cafeteria debates about the viability of “Star Trek” teleporters. But there was more to the lectures than this. The insights Galileo gleaned from analyzing Dante’s measurements in fact anticipated a vital principle of structural engineering. By asserting that you cannot create a giant Lucifer by super-sizing the model of a man — that increasing an object’s magnitude would create a whole new set of structural and material imperatives — Galileo was paving the way for the construction of everything from ocean liners to skyscrapers to Macy’s parade floats.

Typically, historians have dismissed these lectures as an inventive but relatively unimportant flourish on Galileo’s part, a mere prelude to his subsequent theories concerning so-called scaling laws. But Peterson sees the lectures as being central to the Italian’s greatest contributions to the history of thought. In applying mathematical models to Dante’s hell, he argues, Galileo was laying the groundwork for what would become theoretical physics. “This was not just a clever entertainment,” he says, “but something deeper, something closer to the mystery of what made the Scientific Revolution.”

Read the full article here.

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I don't know why but I haven't made this dish in several years.  I  think I just forgot about it and it deserves to be remembered.  It's so easy and really delicious.  I am going to add it back into my regular repertoire.  I had a friend over for dinner tonight and she said it was her favorite dish so far that I've made....so with that sort of praise how can I not make it more often?

Ingredients:

1 lb chicken cutlets or chicken tenders
1 cup flavored bread crumbs
2 eggs beaten
2 large onions sliced thinly
2 cups beef broth
1/4 cup vegetable oil + 2 Tbl
2 Tbl butter

Preparation:

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.  Dip cutlets in beaten egg and then dredge in bread crumbs.  Heat oil in large skillet and fry cutlets until browned on both sides (it's not necessary to cook the chicken through).  Remove cutlets and drain on paper towel and n transfer into a deep casserole dish or dutch oven, set aside.  Clean out skillet and add 2 Tbl of butter and 2 Tbl of vegetable oil and heat over med high heat.  Add sliced onions to skillet and cook stirring often until onions are a dark golden brown and caramelized.  Spoon caramelized onions over chicken cutlets and then pour beef broth over the top of the onions.  Cover and transfer dish to preheated oven and bake for 45 min - 1 hr.  Remove from oven and serve chicken and onions over cous cous spooning extra liquid over the top......the cous cous will soak up the liquid.  Enjoy!
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This is a Martha Stewart cookie of the day recipe.  It really couldn't be easier!  You mix everything in one bowl, roll into balls and bake - DONE!  I was actually surprised how good these came out, I've never made cookies without flour.  They are very peanutty, a little soft a little chewy and a little crumbly.....just yummy. 

Ingredients:

1 cup creamy peanut butter
3/4 cup sugar
1 large egg
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup semisweet chocolate chips
1/2 cup roasted salted peanuts

Preparation:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In a large bowl, stir together reamy peanut butter, sugar, egg, baking soda, and salt until well combined. Stir in chocolate chips and roasted salted peanuts. With moistened hands, roll dough, about 1 heaping tablespoon at a time, into balls. Place 2 inches apart on two baking sheets. Bake until cookies are golden and puffed, 12 to 14 minutes.  Cool 5 minutes on sheets; transfer cookies to racks to  completely
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Maafkan diri ini kerana terlalu lama menyepi. Hampir 18 hari lebih membiarkan blog bersawang. Rekod terakhir adalah 35 hari (kalau tak silap la.) Jadi hari ini jemari kembali menari. Tidak berhajat berbicara panjang, cuma sedikit pengumuman kecil.

Assalamualaikum

Dengan rendah hati, kami, Ahmad Umair dan Atifah mengumumkan tarikh majlis pernikahan dan walimah kami:

Hari: Sabtu

Tarikh: 5 Februari 2011

Tempat: Permatang Pauh, Pulau Pinang

Kad jemputan softcopy adalah seperti dilampirkan.

Buat yang ingin hadir, sila hubungi saya di : 013-5014774

Kehadiran anda amat dialu-alukan untuk memeriahkan lagi majlis ini.

Sekian

Credit to Akh Wan Muhammad Hazim

Akhirnya saat itu tiba. Mohon doa daripada kalian agar pernikahan kami akan menguatkan derapan langkah kami dalam jalan jihad meraih redha Allah SWT.

~End Of Post~

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Here is an excellent short story by Jennifer Ouellette - imagining some of the most productive days of Ibn al-Haytham. I had read about this story line before and I was just recalling that when I was in Luxor just this past November. But Jennifer has provided some fantastic details in a very short space.

Here is the beginning of The Scholar and the Caliph:

In the hush just before fajr, before the devout gather to greet the sunrise with prayers towards Mecca, the Scholar emerges from a fitful sleep and confronts the darkness. He remembers, as consciousness returns, that he is a prisoner in his own home. There is nothing to alleviate the mind-numbing sameness of days, no friendly voice or warm touch to keep the suffocating isolation at bay – not even the musty comfort of his books. Truly, I am cursed among men.

This is not how he envisioned his future as an ambitious young man back in Basra. There, he devoured the works of Aristotle and dreamed of scientific pursuits. "The ink of the scholar is more holy than the blood of the martyrs," the Koran says, and he believed it. So he followed the throngs of Basran fortune-seekers to Cairo, home to the Dar al-'llm ("House of Knowledge"), and found lodgings near the Azhar Mosque. He taught in the mosque's school, and worked as a scribe in the Dar al-'llm, copying Arabic translations of Euclid, Ptolemy and his beloved Aristotle, being careful not to smudge the pages with ink-stained fingers. All the knowledge in the world was at his fingertips. Yet the wisdom of the Ancients could not help him to foresee the ill fortune about to befall him.

Read the rest of the story here.
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(One of the common questions I hear is how to reconcile design and user experience (UX) methods with the Lean Startup. To answer, I asked one of my favorite designers to write a case study illustrating the way they work, taking us step-by-step through a real life redesign.

This is something of an IMVU reunion. The attendees at sllconf 2010 were wowed by Food on the Table's presentation. If you weren't there, be sure to watch the video. Manuel Rosso was IMVU's first VP of Marketing, and is now CEO of Food on the Table, one of the leading lean startups in Austin. I first met Laura Klein when we had the good fortune of hiring her at IMVU to join our interaction design team. Since then, she's gone on to become one of the leading experts implementing UX and design in lean startups. 

In this case study, Laura takes us inside the design process in a real live startup. I hope you'll find it illuminating. -Eric)

A lot of people ask me whether design fits into the lean startup process. They're concerned that if they do any research or design up front that they will end up in a waterfall environment.

This is simply not true. Even the leanest of startups can benefit from design and user research. The following is a great example of how they can work together.

A couple of months ago, Manuel Rosso, the CEO of Food on the Table came to me with a problem. He had a product with a great value proposition and thousands of passionate customers. That wasn't the problem. The problem was activation.

As a bit of background, Food on the Table helps people plan meals for their families around what is on sale in their local grocery stores. The team defined an activated user as someone who made it through all the steps of the first time user experience: selecting a grocery store, indicating food preferences, picking recipes, and printing a grocery list.

Users who made it through activation loved the product, but too many first time users were getting lost and never getting all the way to the end.

Identifying The Problem

More than any startup I've worked with, Food on the Table embraces the lean startup methodology. They release early and often. They get tons of feedback from their users. And, most importantly, they measure and a/b test absolutely everything.

Because of their dedication to metrics, they knew all the details of their registration funnel and subsequent user journey. This meant that they knew exactly how many people weren't finishing activation, and they knew that number was higher than they wanted.

Unfortunately, they fell into a trap that far too many startups fall into at some point: they tried to measure their way out of the problem. They would look at a metric, spot a problem, come up with an idea for how to fix it, release a change, and test it. But the needle wasn't moving.

After a couple of months, Manuel had a realization. The team had always been dedicated to listening to users. But as they added new features, their conversations with users had changed - they became more narrowly focused on new features and whether each individual change was usable and useful. Somewhere along the way, they'd stopped observing the entire user experience, from end to end. This didn't last very long - maybe a month or two, but it was long enough to cause problems.

As soon as he realized what had happened, Manuel went back to talking directly to users about their overall experiences rather than just doing targeted usability tests, and within a few hours he knew what had gone wrong. Even though the new features were great in isolation, they were making the overall interface too complicated. New users were simply getting lost on their way to activation.

Now that they knew generally why they were having the problem, Manuel decided he needed a designer to identify the exact pain points and come up with a way to simplify the interface without losing any of the features.

Key Takeaways:

• Don't try to measure your way out of a problem. Metrics do a great job of telling you what your problem is, but only listening to and observing your users can tell you why they're having trouble.
• When you're moving fast enough, a product can become confusing in a surprisingly short amount of time. Make sure you're regularly observing the user experience.
• Adding a new feature can be useful, but it can also clutter up an interface. Good design helps you offer more functionality with less complexity.

Getting an Overview of the Product

When I first came on board, the team had several different experiments going, including a couple of different competing flows. I needed to get a quick overview of the entire user experience in order to understand what was working and what wasn't.

Of course, the best way to do that is to watch new and current customers use the product. In the old days, I would have recruited test participants, brought them into an office, and run usability sessions. It would have taken a couple of weeks.

Not anymore! I scheduled UserTesting.com sessions, making sure that I got participants in all the main branches of the experiments. Within a few hours, I had a dozen 15 minute videos of people using the product. The entire process, including analysis, took about one full day.

Meanwhile, we set up several remote sessions with current users and used GoToMeeting to run fast observational sessions in order to understand the experience of active users. That took another day.

Key Takeaway: Get feedback fast. Online tools like GoToMeeting and UserTesting.com (and about a hundred others) can help you understand the real user experience quickly and cheaply.

Low Hanging Fruit

Once we had a good idea of the major pain points, we decided to split the design changes into two parts: fixing low hanging fruit and making larger, structural changes to the flow. Obviously, we weren't going to let engineering sit around on their hands while we made major design changes.

The most important reason to do this was that some of the biggest problems for users were easy to fix technically and could be accomplished with almost no design input whatsoever.
For example, in one unsuccessful branch of a test, users saw a button that would allow them to add a recipe to a meal plan. When user test participants within the office pressed the button, it would very quickly add the recipe to the meal plan, and users had no problem understanding it. When we observed users pressing the button on their own computers with normal home broadband connections, the button took a few seconds to register the click.

Of course, this meant that users would click the button over and over, since they were getting no feedback. When the script returned, the user would often have added the recipe to their meal plan several times, which wasn't what they meant to do.

This was, by all accounts, a bad user experience. Why wasn't it caught earlier?

Well, as is the case with all software companies, the computers and bandwidth in the office were much better than the typical user's setup, so nobody saw the problem until we watched actual users in their natural environments.

What was the fix? We put in a "wait" spinner and disabled the button while the script was processing. It took literally minutes to implement and delivered a statistically significant improvement in the performance of that branch of the experiment.

Giving immediate feedback drastically reduced user error

Manuel told me that, immediately after that experience, the team added a very old, slow computer to the office and recently caught a nasty problem that could add 40 seconds to page load times. Needless to say, all usability testing within the office is now done on the slowest machine.

Key Takeaways:

• Sometimes big user problems don't require big solutions.
• To truly understand what your user is experiencing, you have to understand the user's environment.
• Sometimes an entire branch of an experiment can be killed by one tiny bug. If your metrics are surprising, do some qualitative research to figure out why!

A Redesign

While the engineering team worked on the low-hanging fruit, we started the redesign. But we didn't just chuck everything out. We started from the current design and iterated. We identified a few critical areas that were making the experience confusing and fixed those.

For example, we started with the observation that people were doing ok for the first couple of screens, but then they were getting confused about what they were supposed to do next. A simple "Step" counter at the top of each page and very clear, obvious "Next" and "Back" buttons told users where they were and what they should do next.

Users also claimed to want more freedom to select their recipes, but they were quickly overwhelmed by the enormous number of options, so we put in a simple and engaging way to select from recommended recipes while still allowing users to access the full collection with the click of one button.

Users were confused by how to change their meal plan

Recommended recipe carousels made choosing a meal plan fun and easy to understand

One common problem was that users asked for a couple of features that were actually already in the product. The features themselves were very useful and well-designed; they just weren't discoverable enough. By changing the location of these features, we made them more obvious to people.

Most importantly, we didn't just jump to Photoshop mockups of the design. Instead, we created several early sketches before moving to interactive wireframes, which we tested and iterated on with current users. In this case, I created the interactive wireframes in HTML and JavaScript. While they were all grayscale with no visual design, they worked. Users could perform the most important actions in them, like stepping through the application, adding meals to their meal plan, and editing recipes. This made participants feel like they were using an actual product so that they could comment not just on the look and feel but on the actual interactions.

By the end of the iterations and tests, every single one of the users liked the new version better than the old, and we had a very good idea why.

Did we make it perfect? No. Perfection takes an awful lot of time and too often fails to be perfect for the intended users.

Instead, we identified several areas we'd like to optimize and iterate on going forward. But we also decided that it was better to release a very good version and continue improving it, rather than aim for absolute perfection and never get it out the door.

The redesign removed all of the major pain points that we'd identified in the testing and created a much simpler, more engaging interface that would allow the team to add features going forward. It improved the user experience and set the stage for lots more iteration and experimentation in the future. In fact, the team currently has several more exciting experiments running!

Key Takeaways:

• Interactive prototypes and iterative testing let you improve the design quickly before you ever get to the coding stage.
• Targeting only the confusing parts of the interface for redesign reduces the number of things you need to rebuild and helps make both design and development faster.
• Lean design is about improving the user experience iteratively! Fixing the biggest user problems first means getting an improved experience to users quickly and optimizing later based on feedback and metrics.

The Metrics

Like any good lean startup, we released the new design in an a/b test with new users. We had a feeling it would be better, but we needed to know whether we were right. We also wanted to make sure there weren't any small problems we'd overlooked that might have big consequences.

After running for about 6 weeks and a few thousand people, we had our statistically significant answer: a 77% increase in the number of new users who were making it all the way through activation.

My entire involvement with the project to do the research, design, and usability testing was just under 90 hours spread over about 6 weeks.

Key Takeaway: Design - even major redesigns - can be part of an agile, lean startup environment, if done in an efficient way with a lot of iteration and customer involvement.



Laura Klein has been working in Silicon Valley as both an engineer and a UX professional for the last 15 years. She currently consults with lean startups to help them make their products easier to use. She frequently blogs about design, usability, metrics, and product management at Users Know. You can follow her on Twitter at @lauraklein.
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We are familiar with Stephen Jay Gould's separation of science and religion as two Non-Overlapping Magistaria (NOMA) - basically investigations of the natural world on one side and the questions of morals and meaning on the other. It works in some cases, and falls apart in others (there are no referees to enforce the boundaries). But I recently encountered Friedrich Schleiermacher's (1768-1834) three spheres of human life - and I think they are interesting. He divides them as follows:

a) Practical reason (science) or knowing

b) Morality/human action or doing

c) Religion

So I find interesting that he placed morality issues outside of religion. Much of Gould's NOMA gets into trouble when you start looking at scientific studies of the origins of morality, etc. But then what does Schleiermacher (hmm...it takes a while to spell out his name...) think or religion? Well, he considers that the the universe and its relation to humans is described through these three spheres. For the first two,"knowing" and "doing", humans are at the center (i.e. we look at the universe from the human perspective). Whereas, for religion, it is the way the universe acts on us. In this way, religion is our intuition of that action. Or in other words, religion, for Schleiermacher, is rooted in a fundamental experience of being related to the universe as a part within a larger whole. The essence of religion then is the "sense and taste for the infinite". This is mystical/Sufi (and to a certain degree, Sagan, I might add :)) stuff.

What I like about this is that it reduces the chances of clash between science & religion - as religion is now bounded primarily in personal experience (William James can also help on this) and its centrality is to humans have to be looked in a completely different way than science and morality (this way it also avoids Euthyphro's dilemma - "Is what is morally good commanded by God because it is morally good, or is it morally good because it is commanded by God?").

Some food for thought.

But if one does not subscribe to this mystical vision of the infinite, then this may appear to be yet another place where religion is ceding ground.

I ran into Schleiemacher's views on religion while listening to Teaching Company's (as usual) fantastic lectures on Skeptics and Believers: Religious Debate in the Western Intellectual Tradition by Professor Tyler Roberts.

Also see:

Dennett and problems with Gould's NOMA

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