Category: links

I was particularly struck by this comment:

Initially, KFC meals were built around a whole chicken, with a pick-up surface that contained “an enormous amount of breading, crispiness and brownness on the surface. That makes the chicken look like more and gives it this wonderful oily flavour.” Over time, the company began to realise there was less meat in a chicken nugget compared with a whole chicken, and a greater percentage of fried batter. But the real breakthrough was popcorn chicken. “The smaller the piece of meat, the greater the percentage of fat pick-up,” said the food designer. “Now, we have lots of pieces of a cheaper part of the chicken.” The product has been “optimised on every dimension”, with the fat, sugar and salt combining with the perception of good value virtually to guarantee consumer appeal.

Beauty products have expiration dates too! Here’s a useful guide to keeping your magic potions and lotions fresh and effective, and not causing breakouts or infections.

Whether or not you care about the Oscars, Kathryn Bigelow’s wins this year were big. This piece by Manohla Dargis of the NY Times is a must-read.

Infographic of the Day: Nathaniel James tracks Jessie Spano’s excitement level over the course of Saved By The Bell’s classic, and classically superficial, anti-pill-popping episode, “Jessie’s Song”.

From Wired How-To Wiki

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Most of us grew up with the Environmental Protection Agency’s friendly “Reduce, Reuse, Recycle” motto, but when it comes to gadgets, being environmentally responsible isn’t quite so easy.

That’s because electronics are neither easy for manufacturers to create nor simple for recyclers to disassemble. On top of that, laws on handling e-waste are inconsistent between countries, states and even cities. Long story short, the biggest problem with recycling gadgets is it’s confusing as hell for consumers.

But it really doesn’t have to be. Below, Gadget Lab rounds up a list of major companies and how their recycling programs work, so your next useless cellphone doesn’t end up taking up space in a drawer or leaching toxics into a landfill. We’ll start with the easiest stuff first and then move on to the more complicated gadgets.

Useful wiki from the folks at Wired on how to recycle your used electronics.