Poha Recipe [en]

[fr] Ma recette de poha, que je croyais avoir publiée!

For years, people have been asking me for Nisha’s Poha recipe. Here it is — well, my variation of it, because I seem to do it slightly differently (at least the result tastes different).

Poha

 

  • heat oil in pan or karahi
  • half a teaspoon of black mustard seeds and half a teaspoon of cumin seeds (more if you like more, or are cooking big quantities)
  • when the seeds are popping, add curry leaves (anywhere from a dozen leaves to more if you like more)
  • let them sizzle a little, lower the heat
  • add a chopped onion (red if you have that) and green chilli broken in pieces (one chilli, two, three… depends how hot your chillies are and how hot you like your poha)
  • let the onion soften; wash the poha (don’t let it soak, just rinse and drain) — I use roughly two big handfuls for one big serving
  • add a teaspoon of salt (or less), a teaspoon of sugar, a tip of turmeric (upto half a teaspoon, but don’t overdo it), red peanuts and/or frozen green peas/sweet corn
  • mix it all up and leave on low heat 3-5 minutes (for the peanuts mainly)
  • add poha, mix well, turn heat off
  • add chopped coriander leaves
  • serve and sprinkle with lemon/lime juice

Bon appétit!

Fausse alerte enlèvement qui tourne (Granges-Marnand) [fr]

[en] Fake SMS doing the rounds here.

Reçu par SMS tout à l’heure:

Evernote%20Camera%20Roll%2020130522%20112834

une petite fille de 2 ans a ete enlevee a Grange Marnand Village par un homme de 30 ans barbu. Il etait vetu tout en noir cet homme est de peau noir. Conduisant une voiture bleu foncee plaque : 27B 138 fait Tourner ce message, ca pourrait sauver la vie de cette petite fille. Fait passer a tous tes contacts ! ca te prendra que 2 minutes! Fais le pour la petite

 

Soupçons de canular:

  • c’est un message en chaîne (déjà rien que ça)
  • pas de date
  • numéro de plaques qui est pas vaudois
  • le suspect est noir, bien sûr!
  • insistance à la fin du message pour faire passer
  • pas de source
  • je cherche en ligne, je ne trouve rien

Je vais sur la page Facebook de la Police vaudoise et je trouve ceci:

Screenshot%205/22/13%2011:25

Un autre témoignage corroborant:

Screenshot%205/22/13%2011:25

Mon réseau me renseigne:

Screenshot%205/22/13%2011:28

Il semble bien que ce message soit une version “suissifiée” d’un autre message français qui faisait référence à Sarcelles-Village (exemple trouvé rapidement avec Google).

Rappel: les messages qui “tournent” sont quasi tous des fakes. Avant de “transmettre à tous vos contacts” cherchez une source crédible pour votre info. Dans le cas de ce message qui est en train de tourner, en le transmettant à vos contacts vous contribuez par vos bonnes intentions à renforcer des stéréotypes racistes et augmenter la “peur de l’enlèvement” qui est déjà démesurée face au risque réel.

Update: Le Matin dénonce aussi le canular.

Here We Go Again [en]

[fr] Des nouvelles.

Holidays in Spain. Two weeks of crazy work upon my return. Then orphaned kittens at home.

Things are lightening up: the kittens are weaned and clean, the big cats are taking care of them, and they have future homes. Though I have two batches of exams to grade (one now, one early june) my work life is taking a more manageable pace.

I’ve been the worst slacker in the Blogging Tribe experiment. I have a huge backlog of insanely cute kitten photos and videos to process and put online. I’ve started planting things for my balcony again. The sailing season has started.

Next week’s objectives: go back to judo, get back into something resembling a blogging habit, and start my new exercice regimen.

Longer term? Figure out why despite having identified long ago that I take on too much and need to slow down, and making efforts in that direction, I am failing.

Life is good.

OrangeCinema de retour à Genève [fr]

[en] OrangeCinema in Geneva! We have passes for bloggers.

Vous saviez qu’OrangeCinema revenait à Genève? Moi, à la page comme je le suis ces temps, j’aurais sans doute raté l’info sans mon boulot avec Orange. J’avoue que j’adorais aller à l’Open Air (comme c’est étiqueté dans ma tête) et que j’ai été très triste quand ça s’est arrêté à Lausanne.

OrangeCinema.

Vais-je mettre les pieds à Genève pour l’occasion? Qui sait!

Bon, donc, OrangeCinema et Orange, ça veut dire qu’on a des passes pour blogueurs (enfin un système d’invitations +1 dont on peut vous faire bénéficier). Si vous lisez ce blog, vous avez déjà vu passer les fameux formulaires d’inscription. Je ne vais pas vous décevoir, le voici:

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Plutôt du côté de Berne, Zurich, Bâle? Formulaire auf Deutsch 🙂

Et si votre truc c’est pas trop le cinéma, mais plus les médias sociaux, n’oubliez pas notre “Expert Interview” social media le 13 mars (tout bientôt, dans deux semaines).

Kittens [en]

[fr] Chatons! Choupitude! Mais que de boulot!

It’s spring, we need kittens.

Mia's Kittens 1

This is actually a sad story but it seems to be ending well. My brother’s mummy-cat disappeared a week after giving birth to her three kittens. She hasn’t been seen in over a week, so we fear she is gone for good.

That’s the sad bit.

The happy bit is that we’re hand-rearing the kittens and everybody is doing great. Expect cuteness.

Photos on Flickr, Facebook, and Google Plus (your pick of social network).

Mia's Kittens 9

Mia's Kittens 15

Mia's Kittens 18

Mia's Kittens 29

Mia's Kittens 26

Mia's Kittens 32

Médias sociaux chez Orange: rencontre-discussion pour blogueurs [fr]

Le prochain Expert Interview chez Orange, sur les médias sociaux, aura lieu le 13 mai (initialement planifié pour le 30 avril, mais on a déplacé à cause de eComm). Voici le formulaire d’inscription:

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On a remarqué lors de notre premier Expert Interview consacré au service clientèle qu’il y avait un très fort intérêt pour les activités d’Orange touchant aux médias sociaux. Pas étonnant de la part de blogueurs…

Du coup, après un deuxième Expert Interview consacré au réseau (pour le bonheur des geeks et moins geeks), on a décidé de mettre dans la chaise de l’expert Christoph, spécialiste des médias sociaux chez Orange, et avec qui (accessoirement!) je travaille sur ce mandat. Je suis sûre qu’il pourra satisfaire votre curiosité et je me réjouis de la discussion.

Sailing [en]

[fr] La voile et moi. Histoire.

Note: I’ve been thinking of writing this post all afternoon, but put it off because I figured I should illustrate it, and some of the photos I’d like to use are stuck on this computer because of the bad internet connection I have here. Perfect example of how wanting to do things “well” easily leads to doing them “not”.

My parents met in Scotland, sailing. So, if you’re one to read signs and stuff, it would come as no surprise that I like sailing. My largely land-bound brother would probably beg to differ.

As far as I can remember, my dad has had a boat of some kind. On Lac de Neuchâtel when we were little, then Lac Léman (Lake Geneva). Holidays on the French canals, in Yugoslavia (nowadays the Croatian islands), and around another lake I can’t quite clearly remember (Lake Constance?).

I always liked going on the boat, but stuck to doing what I was told, pretty much.

When I came back from India in 2000, I signed up to be waiting-listed for a berth in one of the Lausanne ports. I knew that finding a spot for the boat each year was a bit of a juggling act, and for complicated local political reasons, my dad couldn’t sign up for one. There was a 10-15 year waiting list, but it cost nothing, and I figured I might as well put myself on the list, just in case it became handy some day down the line.

In 2008, I was very surprised to receive notice that I had been attributed a mooring in Vidy. It was good timing, as the boat had recently been washed ashore after the buoy it was moored to outside the port had broken during a storm. It was damaged, but the insurance would pay. Now it had a safe place to live.

The mooring being in my name, I had to pass my sailing permit. This was a good thing: I’d been planning on doing it a few years earlier, but life took over and I dropped the project. This was the kick in the pants I needed. I started accompanying my dad and his crew more seriously on their Wednesday evening races, and passed my Swiss sailing permit in fall 2009.

Before I started actually learning how to sail, I remember I used to find it a rather frustrating experience. It was hard to steer the boat in the direction I wanted it to go (though I’d of course done it in the past, under supervision). I didn’t understand the wind, or how to trim the sails. A lot of what went on on the boat was a mystery to me.

With time and practice, though, things started to sink in. I started to be able to take the boat roughly where I wanted it to go. I started getting the hang of the sail thing.

With a boat at sea now (here in Torrevieja, Spain), it made sense for me to go one step further and do a sea-based course. That’s what I’ve been doing this week — the RYA Day Skipper course. (I also added in Powerboat level 2 and VHF/DSC operator training, but that was unplanned, icing on the cake.) I learned a lot during this course (if you’re in Spain and want classes, book with Serenity Sailing without hesitation), but it also allowed me to realise how far I’ve come in just a few years. A whole lot of things which I used to find challenging are now almost automatic: I know where the wind is without having to really think of it, for example, because I now pick up on a bunch of signs that give me this information.

So the next step now? Gather a bunch of friends who are interested in a sailing holiday, and charter a boat for a week or two somewhere in some nice sunny islands. Oh, and if you have a powerboat lying around somewhere that needs to be taken out for a spin every now and again, let me know!

IRC Bots as Social Objects [en]

With the resurrection of #joiito, I’ve been struck by the role our channel bot (jibot) plays in catalysing interactions between us humans.

Jibot is a topic of discussion as Kevin Marks and others tinker with its various incarnations. We teach it stuff, check to see what it knows. We use it to say things about ourselves and others, but also to play (for example with the function “?cool <username>” implemented by Jens-Christian).

The IRC bot is clearly here a social object. It is an object that generates social interaction. Or maybe more simply, and object that makes us talk about it just by its simple existence. Because jibot is there before us, we have conversations, interact, get to know people that we wouldn’t have if it hadn’t been there. And jibot doesn’t really have to do anything to make that happen; it just has to be.

Arc-en-ciel, ICC, kitesurf [fr]

[en] In Torrevieja. Saw the most impressive rainbow I've ever seen (only iPhone photos, sorry). About to start my Day Skipper course, and interested in taking up kitesurfing.

Bon, article bateau, je sais, mais avant-hier, je crois bien que j’ai vu le plus bel arc-en-ciel de ma vie. 180° d’arc, double arc tout le long, luminosité magnifique, indigo visible. J’avais bien entendu laissé mon bon appareil de photo au bateau, alors je n’ai que des photos-iPhone.

Torrevieja After The Storm 4

Torrevieja After The Storm 2 Torrevieja After The Storm 3

Après l’orage, il fait beau ici à Torrevieja. Environ 20°C dehors (plus au soleil), nuits fraîches, bateau qui tangue juste ce qu’il faut. Demain, je commence mon cours de voile de 5 jours (Day Skipper) à la fin duquel j’aurai mon ICC. Le ICC est le papier qui est généralement demandé pour naviguer en mer dans les eaux territoriales. (Après, il y a ce qu’on est capable de faire, et c’est une autre histoire.)

Déjà en octobre dernier, j’avais remarqué de nombreux kitesurfs dans les parages. Le kitesurf, ça me fait toujours penser à Loïc, avide kitesurfeur. Je me souviens d’ailleurs d’une époque où une photo de lui faisant du kitesurf illustrait son blog (ou son compte Facebook? son blog, je crois).

Bref, ça me fait extrêmement envie, et je vais profiter de ces prochains jours pour me renseigner. Je suis sûre qu’il doit être possible de prendre des cours de kitesurf pour les jours où il y a tellement de vent qu’on n’a pas vraiment envie de naviguer!

Pet Peeve: Marketers and Advertisers Cold-Sending Junk E-mails [en]

[fr] Un truc qui m'énerve: les e-mails non-sollicités me proposant des liens ou autres ressources pour mes articles. Ou de la pub pour mon blog.

I’m sure you all get these. They’re bloody annoying. Here’s the last one I got:

Subject: Interested in Purchasing Advertising: https://climbtothestars.org/

Hi,

I need this type of placement could you do this?

1. We will provide php file with plugin source code

2. Webmaster will need to FTP to root folder of blog, then open folder wp-content/plugins

3. Webmaster will need to create folder ‘footerlinks’, then enter that folder and upload php file that we provided

4. Webmaster will need to log into blog admin area, click ‘Plugins’ in left menu, click ‘Installed’ in submenu, find plugin named ‘Footer Links’ and click ‘activate’ link

5. After that links will appear at the bottom of the blog like here [redacted] see our links in footer.

Very simple work just 1,2 minut only,Our links show on your old ABOUT PAGE.

i can give you $200 for uploading our php file for 1 year time period only.

Let me know are you agree if you agree then send me paypal id please.

Waiting for your Answer

Thanks

And another:

Subject: Interested in Purchasing Text links Advertising

I am basically interested for business reasons. I found your site:”https://climbtothestars.org/” really enchanting and would like to buy a number of text-links on your website. Let me know if you would like to hear more of this.We will provide php file with plugin source code.i need links on your old Post.Give you all instructions.I can offer you a good price.

Or:

Subject: Partnership with an OTA

Dear Editor,

I would be interested in buying a simple text based advertisement on your website.

The advert will be text, not a visual banner. It will appear on a single page of your website.

The text link will be Travel related ( ex: airplane ticket,airfare, etc.. )

We pay an annual fee to you as soon as the advert is live. It is a straight forward process and we work with you to make sure we fit naturally with your site.

If interested we can also provide you with Unique Travel Articles.

Please let me know if you are interested and I’ll send you more details.

If Possible can you send me a link of the page where you would accept advertising on?

Here is one of the latest, which prompted me to write today:

Subject: An Inquiry About an OpenCourseWare Database

I’m reaching out to you because I was extremely impressed with the content that you have created on digitalcrumble.com/post/306596904/the-copy-editors-old-bugaboo-about-not-using. As a writer and researcher in the education field, I sometimes find it very difficult to track down good web resources for prospective students–I just wanted to say that you’ve done a great job with your site.

Do you have any interest in adding a supplemental resource that provides your readers with links to hundreds of OpenCourseWare classes? I think could be really valuable for your site’s visitors because the classes are free and cover a wide variety of subjects.

If you’re not the right person to contact, can you let me know who is?

Adding insult to injury, my silence resulted in three follow-up e-mails over the last months. Three! Sure, following up is good. But at some stage it morphs into pestering.

Follow-up #1

I wanted to follow up with you and make sure you had received my email I sent a little bit ago regarding my research project, [redacted].

I had contacted you initially because I believe the readers on your site would find our OpenCourseWare informative and valuable. It would be great to have you include a link to the resource somewhere on your site. Do not hesitate to get back to me with any questions!

Thanks, I look forward to working with you!

 

Follow-up #2

I hope all is well! I am writing to follow up with you about the resource — [redacted] — I sent you a few days back. Let me know if I can answer any questions for you in regards to it or myself.

Thanks for your help. I look forward to hearing back from you!

 

Follow-up #3

I hope this message reaches you well. I am following up with you to see if you had the opportunity to review the resource that I sent you?

Please let me know what you think, I look forward to hearing any feedback you might have.

In your book, do these contact attempts qualify as spam? For me, they aren’t technically spam, as they seem to have been sent out by hand and by human being robots, and therefore do not really meet the criteria for automated mass-sending.

But the end result is pretty much the same. They’re just noise. How do you deal with them? Respond, or straight to the spam box? Or ignore, at the risk of being pestered?

If you know more about the (misguided?) process that results in this kind of junk arriving in blogger mailboxes, I’d love to hear about it.

Here are a few other choice morcels for you, and I’m out to enjoy the Spain sun a while.

Subject: Education News Resource Inquiry

I recently came across your page at digitalcrumble.com/post/306596904/the-copy-editors-old-bugaboo-about-not-using.

I am emailing you because I am a contributor to the online education publication, EducationNews.org, and have been active in spreading the message about it. The site is a vast resource of education news from K-12 and higher education policy and politics all the way to education technology. The editorial efforts of the site have been cited by the New York Times, Washington Post and Cato Institute while also being added as an educational resource in the New York Times Education section.

Given the quality of our writing and breadth of topics discussed, I thought this resource could be of interest to you and those who frequently visit your site. Please let me know what you think; if interested, it would be great to see it listed on your site for others to read and refer to.

Thanks for your help and I look forward to hearing from you soon.

 

Subject: Graphic on How Taking a Break is Saving Your Life

My name is Kayla and I came across climbtothestars.org after searching for people that have referenced or mentioned workplace health. I am part of a team of designers and researcher that put together an infographic showing why skipping out on your work break might be killing you. I thought you might be interested, so I wanted to reach out.

If this is the correct email and you’re interested in using our content, I’d be happy to share it with you. 🙂

 

Subject: Infographic about How Plastic Bags are Suffocating the World

My name is Kayla and I came across climbtothestars.org after searching for people that have referenced or mentioned the importance of living green. I am part of a team of designers and researcher that put together an infographic showing why plastic bags are ruining the environment and the impact of plastic bag bans. I thought you might be interested, so I wanted to reach out.

If this is the correct email and you’re interested in using our content, I’d be happy to share it with you. 🙂