31 January, 2006
Generation Star Wars
Generation Star Wars Just found this item on a Dirk Maggs production, that is close to my heart that is Gemini Apes. I have emailed in the past John but I lost his email address, so its nice to see that he is still outthere.
James Follett Biography
James Follett Biography Just a link back to one of my pages on the net. I want to update this page but at this stage don't have a clue as to how to do it.
28 January, 2006
Digital Camera Reviews and News: Digital Photography Review: Forums, Glossary, FAQ
Digital Camera Reviews and News: Digital Photography Review: Forums, Glossary, FAQ
Been thinking about a new camera, and the Bro in law gave me a link to this site, wow is all I can say they review bits of cameras that I never knew exsisted, so it looks like I shall be spending some time on this site.
Been thinking about a new camera, and the Bro in law gave me a link to this site, wow is all I can say they review bits of cameras that I never knew exsisted, so it looks like I shall be spending some time on this site.
24 January, 2006
www.adam-hart-davis.org
http://www.adam-hart-davis.org/ If you are from the UK then this gent does not need an intro, all I can say is that he's great and loves to explain science in an easy to understand way.
22 January, 2006
abKey Revolution
abKey Revolution Wow have a look at this for a keyboard, not sure if I would use it. But it does look differant that's for sure.
21 January, 2006
Steve Goble: The Hitchhiker�s Guide To The Galaxy � Tertiary Phase
Steve Goble: The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy Tertiary Phase
Found this while still wasting time on the internet, you know the drill, let's search for stuff on Dirk Maggs, just to make sure that I am being linked to, that I am still in the top ten of the search results.
Well when I read this page, my first thoughts were what? why?, but on thinking about it a bit more, there is something to Steve's argument that Dirk missed a trick or two in his radio shows of Hitchers( I know what will Dirk think?)
But, and it is a big but, Dirk did not have complete control on how the new shows were to be produced and what form they would take (Hey copyright holders hold the strings of power you know, and if I was in their position, I would be trying to protect my material as much as I could)
Why do I say that?
Well money is one reason e.g the bods who came up with the money to produce the new shows, then you have the estate of Mr Adams as it's his stuff they must have had some input into how the shows were going to be like and will want to keep his stuff pure.
Finally you have the guys with the real power, yes the guys who want to sell the CD's and books to you and me.
Finally whatever Dirk did, there will always be someone, somewhere who will not like what he did with "their" show, series, book or film, and that is a fact of life.
Me?
I am glad that the shows got made, I like them they are not 1982 radio, they are 2004 radio that's the bottom line, great radio what ever year it's produced is still great radio, I happen to think that is what Dirk produced in 2004, when you back in years to come if it;s good radio then it will be timeless as its the story you want not how it was made, how much did it cost and all that sort of stuff.
The other last thing to say, is that I wanted to be entertained, to be taken to some other place, somewhere were the world was not telling me what, when and how to do something and any great radio production will always do that if given half a chance be you the listen, the Director Actors only have to lead you to it.
Found this while still wasting time on the internet, you know the drill, let's search for stuff on Dirk Maggs, just to make sure that I am being linked to, that I am still in the top ten of the search results.
Well when I read this page, my first thoughts were what? why?, but on thinking about it a bit more, there is something to Steve's argument that Dirk missed a trick or two in his radio shows of Hitchers( I know what will Dirk think?)
But, and it is a big but, Dirk did not have complete control on how the new shows were to be produced and what form they would take (Hey copyright holders hold the strings of power you know, and if I was in their position, I would be trying to protect my material as much as I could)
Why do I say that?
Well money is one reason e.g the bods who came up with the money to produce the new shows, then you have the estate of Mr Adams as it's his stuff they must have had some input into how the shows were going to be like and will want to keep his stuff pure.
Finally you have the guys with the real power, yes the guys who want to sell the CD's and books to you and me.
Finally whatever Dirk did, there will always be someone, somewhere who will not like what he did with "their" show, series, book or film, and that is a fact of life.
Me?
I am glad that the shows got made, I like them they are not 1982 radio, they are 2004 radio that's the bottom line, great radio what ever year it's produced is still great radio, I happen to think that is what Dirk produced in 2004, when you back in years to come if it;s good radio then it will be timeless as its the story you want not how it was made, how much did it cost and all that sort of stuff.
The other last thing to say, is that I wanted to be entertained, to be taken to some other place, somewhere were the world was not telling me what, when and how to do something and any great radio production will always do that if given half a chance be you the listen, the Director Actors only have to lead you to it.
BBC - h2g2 - Blackberries and Brambling
BBC - h2g2 - Blackberries and Brambling Found this while wasting time on the net. It is as far away as I can get from Garlic, I found the item intresting and yet some how it is missing something, what the missing thing is I have no idea.
20 January, 2006
Err Now What
Don't know about you but me, I have had enough of Garlic for a while. I don't know why but the idea has gone just a bit stale on me, not sure why this should be. But as luck would have it in a later blog today i don have something new that I want to talk about and put here.
19 January, 2006
Garlic Book Version 0.2
This is version 0.2 of what Garlic stuff I have found
Book Layout for a book called Garlic Version 0.2
Garlic
Garlic or Allium sativum to give it its proper name is a perennial plant in the family Alliaceae and genus Allium, closely related to the onion, shallot, and leek. It does not grow in the wild ( not sure if this is right I am sure that I saw a programme on the television, where the guy presenting it had wild Garlic, I will have to check this), and is thought to have arisen in cultivation, probably descended from the species Allium longicuspis, which grows wild in south-western Asia. Garlic has been used throughout all of recorded history for both culinary and medicinal purposes (Here I want to say that recorded history means 4000 years or more)
The portion of the plant most often consumed is an underground storage structure called a head. A head of garlic is composed of a dozen or more discrete cloves, each of which is a botanical bulb, an underground structure comprised of thickened leaf bases. Each garlic clove is made up of just one leaf base, unlike onions, which are composed of numerous leaf layers. The above-ground portions of the garlic plant are also sometimes consumed, particularly while immature and tender.( Good in a salad so I am told)
Garlic has a powerful pungent or "hot" flavor when raw, which mellows considerably when it is cooked. Raw or cooked, garlic is noted for its strong characteristic odor, and for giving those who eat it a distinctive breath odor as well. Some cultures accept the odor of garlic more than others. Northern European cuisines, for example, use garlic only modestly and tend to cook it for long periods of time to diminish its strength.
Introduction 2 pages
Chapter 1
History of Garlic
From the earliest times garlic has been used as an article of diet (Yes that means more than 4000 years ago). It formed part of the food of the Israelites in Egypt and of the laborers employed by Khufu in the construction of his pyramid. Garlic is still grown in Egypt, where, however, the Syrian is the kind most esteemed.
It was largely consumed by the ancient Greek and Roman soldiers, sailors and rural classes, and, as Pliny tells us, by the African peasantry. Galen eulogizes it as the "rustic's theriac" (cure-all), and Alexander Neckam, a writer of the 12th century, recommends it as a palliative of the heat of the sun in field labor.
Pliny the Elder, in his Natural History, gives an exceedingly long list of scenarios in which it was considered beneficial. Dr. T. Sydenham valued it as an application in confluent smallpox, and, says Cullen, found some dropsies cured by it alone. Early in the 20th century, it was sometimes used in the treatment of pulmonary tuberculosis or phthisis.
Garlic was rare in traditional English cuisine (though it is stated to have been grown in England before 1548), and a much more common ingredient in western and southern Europe, notably in French cuisine. Garlic was placed by the ancient Greeks on the piles of stones at cross-roads, as a supper for Hecate (Theophrastus, Characters, The Superstitious Man); and according to Pliny, garlic and onions were invoked as deities by the Egyptians at the taking of oaths. The inhabitants of Pelusium in lower Egypt, who worshipped the onion, are said to have held both it and garlic in aversion as food.
To prevent the plant from running to leaf, Pliny advised bending the stalk downward and covering with earth; seeding, he observes, may be prevented by twisting the stalk (by "seeding", he mostly likely means the development of small, less potent bulbs).
Garlic is among the oldest known horticultural crops. In the Old World, Egyptian and Indian cultures referred to garlic 5000 years ago and there is clear historical evidence for its use by the Babylonians 4500 years ago and by the Chinese 2000 years ago. Some writings suggest that garlic was grown in China as far back as 4000 years ago.
Garlic grows wild only in Central Asia (centered in Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan) today. Earlier in history garlic grew wild over a much larger region and, in fact, wild garlic may have occurred in an area from China to India to Egypt to the Ukraine.
This region where garlic has grown in the wild is referred to as its "center of origin" since this is the geographic region where the crop originated and the only place where it flourished in the wild. In fact, although we sometimes hear about "wild garlic" elsewhere in the world, this is the only region where true garlic routinely grows in the wild without the assistance of human propagation. There are other plants locally referred to as "wild garlic", but these are invariably other species of the garlic genus (Allium), not garlic itself (Allium sativum). For example, Allium vineale is a wild relative of garlic that occurs in North America and is commonly called "wild garlic".
The "center of origin" for a plant or animal species is also referred to as its "center of diversity" since it is here that the broadest range of genetic variation can be expected. That is why those of us who have sought to find new genetic variation in garlic have collected wild garlic in Central Asia.
Once cultivated by the first garlic farmers outside of its "center of origin", what types of garlic did early afficianados grow? In fact, we know almost nothing about the early types of garlic produced. No designation of garlic varieties was made in the early writings discovered to date, be it hardneck or softneck, red or white, early or late, local or exotic. Throughout its earlier history some have speculated that softneck garlic was the predominant type cultivated although evidence of what would be interpreted as a hardneck type was found interred in Egyptian tombs. It was not until garlic was cultivated in southern Europe within the last 1000 years that the distinction between hardneck and softneck was routinely noted. Until more ancient writings which describe garlic are found, or old, well-preserved samples are unearthed, we can only speculate about the early types of garlic grown.
Garlic producers and consumers have come through 5000 years of history growing and eating their crop with little need to specify type or variety. In fact it is a rather modern habit of only the last few hundred years whereby more detailed descriptions of varieties have come to be developed for any crop plant.
Chapter 2
Garlic Through The ages 10 pages
Chapter 3
Garlic the plant
Garlic has been used for thousands of years as a food additive and as medicine in China . The name is of Anglo-Saxon origin, derived from gar (a spear) and lac (a plant), referring to the shape of its leaves.
It belongs to the Liliaceae family and genus Allium, which has more than 600 available species. Included in this family are onions, shallots, leeks, Japanese bunching onions, Chinese and common chives. Mostly all Allium crops originate from the main center of Allium diversity that stretches from the Mediterranean basin to central Asia. Garlic has a long history of use throughout Europe as well, being used as a food additive and for various medicinal purposes, and has often been mentioned in folklore.
There is a Mohammedan legend that states: "When Satan stepped out from the Garden of Eden after the fall of man, Garlic sprang up from the spot where he placed his left foot, and Onion from that where his right foot touched". In some parts of Europe, there is a superstition that if a man running a race chews on a morsel of the bulb, it will prevent his competitors from passing him.
However, garlic is very important in many cultures for their cuisine. What would Chinese or Italian food be without garlic?
And its long history of medicinal uses are now being backed up by numerous studies proving its antibacterial and healing powers.
Center of Origin of Garlic
Garlic is believed to have originated in western China from around the Tien Shan Mountains to Kazakhstan and Kirgizstan. Vvedenskv proposed that garlic evolved from the wild species Allium longicuspus. The spread of garlic probably was first to the Old World and then to the New World.
Chromosome Number
Common garlic, found in supermarkets, has a somatic number of 2N=16 with a karyotypic formula of 6 metacentric chromosomes, 4 submetacentric chromosomes, and 6 acrocentric chromosomes. Garlic plants found in the Campania region of Italy were shown to be tetraploid with 4N=3 2.
Nutritive Value
While garlic is primarily used as an herb to enhance many food dishes in various cultures, many compounds can be found in its bulbs. It contains vitamins A and C, potassium, phosphorous, selenium, and a number of amino acids.
Most important are the over 75 sulfur containing compounds including alliin (S-allyl-Lcysteine sulfoxide). If the bulbs are ground or crushed, alliin is transformed into allicin (diallyldisulfide S-oxide), which the typical garlic odor is attributed. A broad spectrum of antibacterial properties is associated with allicin .
Medicinal Uses
In the 1970's many epidemiological and experimental studies provided evidence that garlic influences risk factors associated with heart disease, Feeding garlic to patients with coronary heart disease decreased serum cholesterol, triglycerides, LDL and VLDL and increased HDL levels. A 1993 study showed garlic can lower serum cholesterol by as much as 9 percent by stimulating the release of bile by the gallbladder and by decreasing the production of cholesterol in the liver. Garlic may also aid in the lowering of blood pressure by slowing the production of the body's pressure raising hormones.
Another benefit of garlic is its ability to relax vascular smooth muscle, which prevents the acute hypoxic increase in pulmonary pressure.
Garlic is also able to stimulate the immune system's macrophages, white blood cells that destroy foreign organisms. It also increases the activity of T-helper cells, and can be used to treat upper respiratory viral infections because of its ability to clear mucous from lungs, and help asthma patients.
During WWI garlic was used as an antiseptic for wounds and to treat typhus and dysentery, the Russians are sited as being the guys who did this as they did not have access to the new wonder drug Penicillin at that time, in fact lots of people did not have access to it as it was in very short supply.
Researchers have found that garlic blocks the action of certain enzymes that help infectious microbes survive in host tissue.
Potent antioxidants are found in garlic that protects cell membranes and DNA from damage. A study was done on different 22 vegetables and tea, it found garlic to be in the top quintile of ORACroo, or oxygen radical absorption capacity. Garlic also had the highest antioxidant activity against peroxyl radicals based on fresh weight. It also stimulates the production of the liver's detoxifying enzymes that neutralize carcinogens. Nitrosomes are carcinogens absorbed from food and water and can be blocked in a test tube by garlic.
This is evidence that higher intake of garlic may reduce some cancer type risks. Dietary intake of garlic is inversely related to the incidence of gastric cancer as shown in a study in Shandong Province, China. Chemical studies have shown diallyl sulfide to be the major active compound of garlic.
Morphology of Garlic
There are two distinctive botanical varieties of garlic recognized, Allium ophioscorodon (L.) and A. sativum (L.). Variety ophioscorodon is characterized by an initially coiled, tall woody scape with relatively few brownish-purple cloves per bulb.
The sativum variety, or common garlic, produces a weak flower stalk, if it bolts, and has a bulb with many pure white or pink-blushed bulblets. The bulb, or part which is eaten, is composed of numerous bulblets or cloves, they are enclosed in a whitish skin and grouped between membranous papery scales.
The leaves are like grass, long, narrow, and flat. If flowers are produced, they are at the end of a stalk rising directly from the bulb. The flowers, which are white, are grouped together in a globular head, or umbel, and are enclosed in a kind of leaf or spathe. Small bulbils may be produced to replace the flowers. The development of these aerial bulbils may be a result of domestication.
Cultivation of Garlic
Garlic is normally cultivated vegetatively. Garlic produces best in a rich, moist, sandy soil, but can also be grown in a loam or clay soil. A little lime should be added to the soil. The bulb should be divided into individual cloves, and these are planted separately about 6 inches apart and 2 inches deep. A sunny spot is best and weeding recommended while occasionally gathering the soil up around the roots.
A look at the effects different fertilizers can have on garlic showed that phosphorous can decrease plant height, average bulb weight, and marketable yield. Farmyard manure can also decrease the average bulb weight and marketable yield but increase the plant height.
The date that garlic is planted can have a significant effect on the yield. In one study, bulbs planted in the autumn increased total yield by 3.13 tons/ha and marketable yield by 2.93 tons/ha as compared, with bulbs planted in the spring. Trimming can also affect yield. Trimming an upright shoot can increase total yield by 10.07 tons/ha and 0.42 tons/ha for marketable yield. Therefore, if planting for higher yield, planting in the autumn and trimming the shoots can be very advantageous for greater bulb let production.
Chapter 4
Garlic the Varieties
German Red
Large bright purple bulb contains 8-12, extra easy-to-peel, round, light brown cloves with some purple at the base. Flavour is strong, hot, and spicy. Keeps moderately well when properly cured and stored. Can be grown in mild climates; however, develops better quality and size where winters are cold. Colour will become brighter if it is stressed by too much water.
Spanish Roja
Gourmet garlic famous for flavour! Light purple streaks on 7-13 easy-to-peel cloves. Suited to colder climates. May not yield well where winters are too mild. Very popular with market gardeners and restaurants. Brought to the Northwest before 1900; often called "Greek Blue" by Northwest gardeners.
Early Italian Purple
The bulb is large and white-skinned with purple stripes and numerous small cloves. This vigorous plant is better adapted to summer heat than Italian Late. Widely grown around Gilroy, California, the “garlic capital” of the world.
Inchelium Red
From Inchelium, WA, on the Colville Indian Reservation in the USA are large - to 3+ inches in diameter. 8-20 cloves of good size. Mild, but lasting, flavour, with a hint of hot! Dense cloves store well. Flavour can get stronger in storage. This vigorous soft-necked variety won a Rodale taste test of 20 garlic strains - named "Very Best of the Soft-Necks."
Chapter 5
Garlic and its uses 5 pages
Chapter 6
Medical effects of Garlic 5 pages
Chapter 7
10 Great uses of Garlic 10 pages
Chapter 8
Garlic Recipes 10 pages
Chapter 9
Notes 5 pages
Total Number of pages 82
Book Layout for a book called Garlic Version 0.2
Garlic
Garlic or Allium sativum to give it its proper name is a perennial plant in the family Alliaceae and genus Allium, closely related to the onion, shallot, and leek. It does not grow in the wild ( not sure if this is right I am sure that I saw a programme on the television, where the guy presenting it had wild Garlic, I will have to check this), and is thought to have arisen in cultivation, probably descended from the species Allium longicuspis, which grows wild in south-western Asia. Garlic has been used throughout all of recorded history for both culinary and medicinal purposes (Here I want to say that recorded history means 4000 years or more)
The portion of the plant most often consumed is an underground storage structure called a head. A head of garlic is composed of a dozen or more discrete cloves, each of which is a botanical bulb, an underground structure comprised of thickened leaf bases. Each garlic clove is made up of just one leaf base, unlike onions, which are composed of numerous leaf layers. The above-ground portions of the garlic plant are also sometimes consumed, particularly while immature and tender.( Good in a salad so I am told)
Garlic has a powerful pungent or "hot" flavor when raw, which mellows considerably when it is cooked. Raw or cooked, garlic is noted for its strong characteristic odor, and for giving those who eat it a distinctive breath odor as well. Some cultures accept the odor of garlic more than others. Northern European cuisines, for example, use garlic only modestly and tend to cook it for long periods of time to diminish its strength.
Introduction 2 pages
Chapter 1
History of Garlic
From the earliest times garlic has been used as an article of diet (Yes that means more than 4000 years ago). It formed part of the food of the Israelites in Egypt and of the laborers employed by Khufu in the construction of his pyramid. Garlic is still grown in Egypt, where, however, the Syrian is the kind most esteemed.
It was largely consumed by the ancient Greek and Roman soldiers, sailors and rural classes, and, as Pliny tells us, by the African peasantry. Galen eulogizes it as the "rustic's theriac" (cure-all), and Alexander Neckam, a writer of the 12th century, recommends it as a palliative of the heat of the sun in field labor.
Pliny the Elder, in his Natural History, gives an exceedingly long list of scenarios in which it was considered beneficial. Dr. T. Sydenham valued it as an application in confluent smallpox, and, says Cullen, found some dropsies cured by it alone. Early in the 20th century, it was sometimes used in the treatment of pulmonary tuberculosis or phthisis.
Garlic was rare in traditional English cuisine (though it is stated to have been grown in England before 1548), and a much more common ingredient in western and southern Europe, notably in French cuisine. Garlic was placed by the ancient Greeks on the piles of stones at cross-roads, as a supper for Hecate (Theophrastus, Characters, The Superstitious Man); and according to Pliny, garlic and onions were invoked as deities by the Egyptians at the taking of oaths. The inhabitants of Pelusium in lower Egypt, who worshipped the onion, are said to have held both it and garlic in aversion as food.
To prevent the plant from running to leaf, Pliny advised bending the stalk downward and covering with earth; seeding, he observes, may be prevented by twisting the stalk (by "seeding", he mostly likely means the development of small, less potent bulbs).
Garlic is among the oldest known horticultural crops. In the Old World, Egyptian and Indian cultures referred to garlic 5000 years ago and there is clear historical evidence for its use by the Babylonians 4500 years ago and by the Chinese 2000 years ago. Some writings suggest that garlic was grown in China as far back as 4000 years ago.
Garlic grows wild only in Central Asia (centered in Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan) today. Earlier in history garlic grew wild over a much larger region and, in fact, wild garlic may have occurred in an area from China to India to Egypt to the Ukraine.
This region where garlic has grown in the wild is referred to as its "center of origin" since this is the geographic region where the crop originated and the only place where it flourished in the wild. In fact, although we sometimes hear about "wild garlic" elsewhere in the world, this is the only region where true garlic routinely grows in the wild without the assistance of human propagation. There are other plants locally referred to as "wild garlic", but these are invariably other species of the garlic genus (Allium), not garlic itself (Allium sativum). For example, Allium vineale is a wild relative of garlic that occurs in North America and is commonly called "wild garlic".
The "center of origin" for a plant or animal species is also referred to as its "center of diversity" since it is here that the broadest range of genetic variation can be expected. That is why those of us who have sought to find new genetic variation in garlic have collected wild garlic in Central Asia.
Once cultivated by the first garlic farmers outside of its "center of origin", what types of garlic did early afficianados grow? In fact, we know almost nothing about the early types of garlic produced. No designation of garlic varieties was made in the early writings discovered to date, be it hardneck or softneck, red or white, early or late, local or exotic. Throughout its earlier history some have speculated that softneck garlic was the predominant type cultivated although evidence of what would be interpreted as a hardneck type was found interred in Egyptian tombs. It was not until garlic was cultivated in southern Europe within the last 1000 years that the distinction between hardneck and softneck was routinely noted. Until more ancient writings which describe garlic are found, or old, well-preserved samples are unearthed, we can only speculate about the early types of garlic grown.
Garlic producers and consumers have come through 5000 years of history growing and eating their crop with little need to specify type or variety. In fact it is a rather modern habit of only the last few hundred years whereby more detailed descriptions of varieties have come to be developed for any crop plant.
Chapter 2
Garlic Through The ages 10 pages
Chapter 3
Garlic the plant
Garlic has been used for thousands of years as a food additive and as medicine in China . The name is of Anglo-Saxon origin, derived from gar (a spear) and lac (a plant), referring to the shape of its leaves.
It belongs to the Liliaceae family and genus Allium, which has more than 600 available species. Included in this family are onions, shallots, leeks, Japanese bunching onions, Chinese and common chives. Mostly all Allium crops originate from the main center of Allium diversity that stretches from the Mediterranean basin to central Asia. Garlic has a long history of use throughout Europe as well, being used as a food additive and for various medicinal purposes, and has often been mentioned in folklore.
There is a Mohammedan legend that states: "When Satan stepped out from the Garden of Eden after the fall of man, Garlic sprang up from the spot where he placed his left foot, and Onion from that where his right foot touched". In some parts of Europe, there is a superstition that if a man running a race chews on a morsel of the bulb, it will prevent his competitors from passing him.
However, garlic is very important in many cultures for their cuisine. What would Chinese or Italian food be without garlic?
And its long history of medicinal uses are now being backed up by numerous studies proving its antibacterial and healing powers.
Center of Origin of Garlic
Garlic is believed to have originated in western China from around the Tien Shan Mountains to Kazakhstan and Kirgizstan. Vvedenskv proposed that garlic evolved from the wild species Allium longicuspus. The spread of garlic probably was first to the Old World and then to the New World.
Chromosome Number
Common garlic, found in supermarkets, has a somatic number of 2N=16 with a karyotypic formula of 6 metacentric chromosomes, 4 submetacentric chromosomes, and 6 acrocentric chromosomes. Garlic plants found in the Campania region of Italy were shown to be tetraploid with 4N=3 2.
Nutritive Value
While garlic is primarily used as an herb to enhance many food dishes in various cultures, many compounds can be found in its bulbs. It contains vitamins A and C, potassium, phosphorous, selenium, and a number of amino acids.
Most important are the over 75 sulfur containing compounds including alliin (S-allyl-Lcysteine sulfoxide). If the bulbs are ground or crushed, alliin is transformed into allicin (diallyldisulfide S-oxide), which the typical garlic odor is attributed. A broad spectrum of antibacterial properties is associated with allicin .
Medicinal Uses
In the 1970's many epidemiological and experimental studies provided evidence that garlic influences risk factors associated with heart disease, Feeding garlic to patients with coronary heart disease decreased serum cholesterol, triglycerides, LDL and VLDL and increased HDL levels. A 1993 study showed garlic can lower serum cholesterol by as much as 9 percent by stimulating the release of bile by the gallbladder and by decreasing the production of cholesterol in the liver. Garlic may also aid in the lowering of blood pressure by slowing the production of the body's pressure raising hormones.
Another benefit of garlic is its ability to relax vascular smooth muscle, which prevents the acute hypoxic increase in pulmonary pressure.
Garlic is also able to stimulate the immune system's macrophages, white blood cells that destroy foreign organisms. It also increases the activity of T-helper cells, and can be used to treat upper respiratory viral infections because of its ability to clear mucous from lungs, and help asthma patients.
During WWI garlic was used as an antiseptic for wounds and to treat typhus and dysentery, the Russians are sited as being the guys who did this as they did not have access to the new wonder drug Penicillin at that time, in fact lots of people did not have access to it as it was in very short supply.
Researchers have found that garlic blocks the action of certain enzymes that help infectious microbes survive in host tissue.
Potent antioxidants are found in garlic that protects cell membranes and DNA from damage. A study was done on different 22 vegetables and tea, it found garlic to be in the top quintile of ORACroo, or oxygen radical absorption capacity. Garlic also had the highest antioxidant activity against peroxyl radicals based on fresh weight. It also stimulates the production of the liver's detoxifying enzymes that neutralize carcinogens. Nitrosomes are carcinogens absorbed from food and water and can be blocked in a test tube by garlic.
This is evidence that higher intake of garlic may reduce some cancer type risks. Dietary intake of garlic is inversely related to the incidence of gastric cancer as shown in a study in Shandong Province, China. Chemical studies have shown diallyl sulfide to be the major active compound of garlic.
Morphology of Garlic
There are two distinctive botanical varieties of garlic recognized, Allium ophioscorodon (L.) and A. sativum (L.). Variety ophioscorodon is characterized by an initially coiled, tall woody scape with relatively few brownish-purple cloves per bulb.
The sativum variety, or common garlic, produces a weak flower stalk, if it bolts, and has a bulb with many pure white or pink-blushed bulblets. The bulb, or part which is eaten, is composed of numerous bulblets or cloves, they are enclosed in a whitish skin and grouped between membranous papery scales.
The leaves are like grass, long, narrow, and flat. If flowers are produced, they are at the end of a stalk rising directly from the bulb. The flowers, which are white, are grouped together in a globular head, or umbel, and are enclosed in a kind of leaf or spathe. Small bulbils may be produced to replace the flowers. The development of these aerial bulbils may be a result of domestication.
Cultivation of Garlic
Garlic is normally cultivated vegetatively. Garlic produces best in a rich, moist, sandy soil, but can also be grown in a loam or clay soil. A little lime should be added to the soil. The bulb should be divided into individual cloves, and these are planted separately about 6 inches apart and 2 inches deep. A sunny spot is best and weeding recommended while occasionally gathering the soil up around the roots.
A look at the effects different fertilizers can have on garlic showed that phosphorous can decrease plant height, average bulb weight, and marketable yield. Farmyard manure can also decrease the average bulb weight and marketable yield but increase the plant height.
The date that garlic is planted can have a significant effect on the yield. In one study, bulbs planted in the autumn increased total yield by 3.13 tons/ha and marketable yield by 2.93 tons/ha as compared, with bulbs planted in the spring. Trimming can also affect yield. Trimming an upright shoot can increase total yield by 10.07 tons/ha and 0.42 tons/ha for marketable yield. Therefore, if planting for higher yield, planting in the autumn and trimming the shoots can be very advantageous for greater bulb let production.
Chapter 4
Garlic the Varieties
German Red
Large bright purple bulb contains 8-12, extra easy-to-peel, round, light brown cloves with some purple at the base. Flavour is strong, hot, and spicy. Keeps moderately well when properly cured and stored. Can be grown in mild climates; however, develops better quality and size where winters are cold. Colour will become brighter if it is stressed by too much water.
Spanish Roja
Gourmet garlic famous for flavour! Light purple streaks on 7-13 easy-to-peel cloves. Suited to colder climates. May not yield well where winters are too mild. Very popular with market gardeners and restaurants. Brought to the Northwest before 1900; often called "Greek Blue" by Northwest gardeners.
Early Italian Purple
The bulb is large and white-skinned with purple stripes and numerous small cloves. This vigorous plant is better adapted to summer heat than Italian Late. Widely grown around Gilroy, California, the “garlic capital” of the world.
Inchelium Red
From Inchelium, WA, on the Colville Indian Reservation in the USA are large - to 3+ inches in diameter. 8-20 cloves of good size. Mild, but lasting, flavour, with a hint of hot! Dense cloves store well. Flavour can get stronger in storage. This vigorous soft-necked variety won a Rodale taste test of 20 garlic strains - named "Very Best of the Soft-Necks."
Chapter 5
Garlic and its uses 5 pages
Chapter 6
Medical effects of Garlic 5 pages
Chapter 7
10 Great uses of Garlic 10 pages
Chapter 8
Garlic Recipes 10 pages
Chapter 9
Notes 5 pages
Total Number of pages 82
18 January, 2006
Garlic Book Part 1
If you read my earlier blog you will know that I had a great idea for a radio show lasting 30 minutes or a book which at that time I thought might run up to 90 odd pages.
Well here is that blog again, but this time I have started to add some information that I have so far found on Garlic. I don’t know yet if there is enough information to create a book, at this stage I do know that much more research is needed.
So enjoy what’s here, and if I can I may add to it.
Had a great Idea for either a radio show or even one of my little books that I write now and then. Well my last small books are popular when you look at the number of downloads they get. One strange thing is that the later versions of the books don’t get downloaded as much as the earlier one’s. Why this should be so I just don’t know.
The later versions of the books have far more information in them; they even have the spelling corrected…
These other books that I am talking about are on various subjects but by far the most popular are the book on Citrus fruits.
The main reason for a book on Citrus fruits?
Easy answer, as in the books I do go into far grater detail, is that I wondered just how many types of Citrus fruits there where.
So this great idea I have that could be made into either a radio programme of say 30 minutes or a small book running to say 80-100 pages is on and item that almost the whole world has or does use. It’s an item that has been around for more than 4000 years.
Oh and you eat it…
Any ideas?
No?
Well how about a radio show or programme on Garlic?
I know I know..
Me I think it’s a great idea.
Why?
Well there are lots of different Garlic plants of various types that all have different uses and grow in different places.
There is the history of Garlic.
There is all the different uses that garlic gets used in.
Finally there are the medical uses that it gets put to, which from the very small amount of research I have done is a lot.
If I was going to write a small book then I think the book could have a layout a bit like this.
Book Layout for a book called Garlic Version 0.1
Garlic Intorduction
Garlic or Allium sativum to give it its proper name is a perennial plant in the family Alliaceae and genus Allium, closely related to the onion, shallot, and leek. It does not grow in the wild ( not sure if this is right I am sure that I saw a programme on the television, where the guy presenting it had wild Garlic, I will have to check this), and is thought to have arisen in cultivation, probably descended from the species Allium longicuspis, which grows wild in south-western Asia. Garlic has been used throughout all of recorded history for both culinary and medicinal purposes (Here I want to say that recorded history means 4000 years or more)
The portion of the plant most often consumed is an underground storage structure called a head. A head of garlic is composed of a dozen or more discrete cloves, each of which is a botanical bulb, an underground structure comprised of thickened leaf bases. Each garlic clove is made up of just one leaf base, unlike onions, which are composed of numerous leaf layers. The above-ground portions of the garlic plant are also sometimes consumed, particularly while immature and tender.( Good in a salad so I am told)
Garlic has a powerful pungent or "hot" flavor when raw, which mellows considerably when it is cooked. Raw or cooked, garlic is noted for its strong characteristic odor, and for giving those who eat it a distinctive breath odor as well. Some cultures accept the odor of garlic more than others. Northern European cuisines, for example, use garlic only modestly and tend to cook it for long periods of time to diminish its strength.
Introduction 2 pages
Chapter 1
History of Garlic 20 pages
From the earliest times garlic has been used as an article of diet (Yes that means more than 4000 years ago). It formed part of the food of the Israelites in Egypt and of the laborers employed by Khufu in the construction of his pyramid. Garlic is still grown in Egypt, where, however, the Syrian is the kind most esteemed.
It was largely consumed by the ancient Greek and Roman soldiers, sailors and rural classes, and, as Pliny tells us, by the African peasantry. Galen eulogizes it as the "rustic's theriac" (cure-all), and Alexander Neckam, a writer of the 12th century, recommends it as a palliative of the heat of the sun in field labor
.
Pliny the Elder, in his Natural History, gives an exceedingly long list of scenarios in which it was considered beneficial. Dr. T. Sydenham valued it as an application in confluent smallpox, and, says Cullen, found some dropsies cured by it alone. Early in the 20th century, it was sometimes used in the treatment of pulmonary tuberculosis or phthisis.
Garlic was rare in traditional English cuisine (though it is stated to have been grown in England before 1548), and a much more common ingredient in western and southern Europe, notably in French cuisine. Garlic was placed by the ancient Greeks on the piles of stones at cross-roads, as a supper for Hecate (Theophrastus, Characters, The Superstitious Man); and according to Pliny, garlic and onions were invoked as deities by the Egyptians at the taking of oaths. The inhabitants of Pelusium in lower Egypt, who worshipped the onion, are said to have held both it and garlic in aversion as food.
To prevent the plant from running to leaf, Pliny advised bending the stalk downward and covering with earth; seeding, he observes, may be prevented by twisting the stalk (by "seeding", he mostly likely means the development of small, less potent bulbs).
Chapter 2
Garlic Through The ages 10 pages
Chapter 3
Garlic the plant 5 pages
Chapter 4
Garlic the Varieties say 10 pages
Chapter 5
Garlic and its uses 5 pages
Chapter 6
Medical effects of Garlic 5 pages
Chapter 7
10 Great uses of Garlic 10 pages
Chapter 8
Garlic Recipes 10 pages
Chapter 9
Notes 5 pages
Total Number of pages 82
Ass you can see the book could with a bit of effort be at least 82 pages long and if you added some copyright free pictures maybe the book would run to 95 pages. I reckon that someone else must have written a book on Garlic as it is such a popular cooking ingredient that selling such a book to a publisher would not be a problem.
You might think that saying all this stuff here would mean that I have no chance of making any money from doing such a book. But the truth be told I write because its fun and all my books have be made available under the share and share alike licence.
Well here is that blog again, but this time I have started to add some information that I have so far found on Garlic. I don’t know yet if there is enough information to create a book, at this stage I do know that much more research is needed.
So enjoy what’s here, and if I can I may add to it.
Had a great Idea for either a radio show or even one of my little books that I write now and then. Well my last small books are popular when you look at the number of downloads they get. One strange thing is that the later versions of the books don’t get downloaded as much as the earlier one’s. Why this should be so I just don’t know.
The later versions of the books have far more information in them; they even have the spelling corrected…
These other books that I am talking about are on various subjects but by far the most popular are the book on Citrus fruits.
The main reason for a book on Citrus fruits?
Easy answer, as in the books I do go into far grater detail, is that I wondered just how many types of Citrus fruits there where.
So this great idea I have that could be made into either a radio programme of say 30 minutes or a small book running to say 80-100 pages is on and item that almost the whole world has or does use. It’s an item that has been around for more than 4000 years.
Oh and you eat it…
Any ideas?
No?
Well how about a radio show or programme on Garlic?
I know I know..
Me I think it’s a great idea.
Why?
Well there are lots of different Garlic plants of various types that all have different uses and grow in different places.
There is the history of Garlic.
There is all the different uses that garlic gets used in.
Finally there are the medical uses that it gets put to, which from the very small amount of research I have done is a lot.
If I was going to write a small book then I think the book could have a layout a bit like this.
Book Layout for a book called Garlic Version 0.1
Garlic Intorduction
Garlic or Allium sativum to give it its proper name is a perennial plant in the family Alliaceae and genus Allium, closely related to the onion, shallot, and leek. It does not grow in the wild ( not sure if this is right I am sure that I saw a programme on the television, where the guy presenting it had wild Garlic, I will have to check this), and is thought to have arisen in cultivation, probably descended from the species Allium longicuspis, which grows wild in south-western Asia. Garlic has been used throughout all of recorded history for both culinary and medicinal purposes (Here I want to say that recorded history means 4000 years or more)
The portion of the plant most often consumed is an underground storage structure called a head. A head of garlic is composed of a dozen or more discrete cloves, each of which is a botanical bulb, an underground structure comprised of thickened leaf bases. Each garlic clove is made up of just one leaf base, unlike onions, which are composed of numerous leaf layers. The above-ground portions of the garlic plant are also sometimes consumed, particularly while immature and tender.( Good in a salad so I am told)
Garlic has a powerful pungent or "hot" flavor when raw, which mellows considerably when it is cooked. Raw or cooked, garlic is noted for its strong characteristic odor, and for giving those who eat it a distinctive breath odor as well. Some cultures accept the odor of garlic more than others. Northern European cuisines, for example, use garlic only modestly and tend to cook it for long periods of time to diminish its strength.
Introduction 2 pages
Chapter 1
History of Garlic 20 pages
From the earliest times garlic has been used as an article of diet (Yes that means more than 4000 years ago). It formed part of the food of the Israelites in Egypt and of the laborers employed by Khufu in the construction of his pyramid. Garlic is still grown in Egypt, where, however, the Syrian is the kind most esteemed.
It was largely consumed by the ancient Greek and Roman soldiers, sailors and rural classes, and, as Pliny tells us, by the African peasantry. Galen eulogizes it as the "rustic's theriac" (cure-all), and Alexander Neckam, a writer of the 12th century, recommends it as a palliative of the heat of the sun in field labor
.
Pliny the Elder, in his Natural History, gives an exceedingly long list of scenarios in which it was considered beneficial. Dr. T. Sydenham valued it as an application in confluent smallpox, and, says Cullen, found some dropsies cured by it alone. Early in the 20th century, it was sometimes used in the treatment of pulmonary tuberculosis or phthisis.
Garlic was rare in traditional English cuisine (though it is stated to have been grown in England before 1548), and a much more common ingredient in western and southern Europe, notably in French cuisine. Garlic was placed by the ancient Greeks on the piles of stones at cross-roads, as a supper for Hecate (Theophrastus, Characters, The Superstitious Man); and according to Pliny, garlic and onions were invoked as deities by the Egyptians at the taking of oaths. The inhabitants of Pelusium in lower Egypt, who worshipped the onion, are said to have held both it and garlic in aversion as food.
To prevent the plant from running to leaf, Pliny advised bending the stalk downward and covering with earth; seeding, he observes, may be prevented by twisting the stalk (by "seeding", he mostly likely means the development of small, less potent bulbs).
Chapter 2
Garlic Through The ages 10 pages
Chapter 3
Garlic the plant 5 pages
Chapter 4
Garlic the Varieties say 10 pages
Chapter 5
Garlic and its uses 5 pages
Chapter 6
Medical effects of Garlic 5 pages
Chapter 7
10 Great uses of Garlic 10 pages
Chapter 8
Garlic Recipes 10 pages
Chapter 9
Notes 5 pages
Total Number of pages 82
Ass you can see the book could with a bit of effort be at least 82 pages long and if you added some copyright free pictures maybe the book would run to 95 pages. I reckon that someone else must have written a book on Garlic as it is such a popular cooking ingredient that selling such a book to a publisher would not be a problem.
You might think that saying all this stuff here would mean that I have no chance of making any money from doing such a book. But the truth be told I write because its fun and all my books have be made available under the share and share alike licence.
16 January, 2006
Garlic - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Garlic - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia here is some base information on Garlic, if I was going to write more then this would be a good start.
Had a great Idea for Radio Show
This is version 0.2 of what Garlic stuff I have found
Book Layout for a book called Garlic Version 0.2
Garlic
Garlic or Allium sativum to give it its proper name is a perennial plant in the family Alliaceae and genus Allium, closely related to the onion, shallot, and leek. It does not grow in the wild ( not sure if this is right I am sure that I saw a programme on the television, where the guy presenting it had wild Garlic, I will have to check this), and is thought to have arisen in cultivation, probably descended from the species Allium longicuspis, which grows wild in south-western Asia. Garlic has been used throughout all of recorded history for both culinary and medicinal purposes (Here I want to say that recorded history means 4000 years or more)
The portion of the plant most often consumed is an underground storage structure called a head. A head of garlic is composed of a dozen or more discrete cloves, each of which is a botanical bulb, an underground structure comprised of thickened leaf bases. Each garlic clove is made up of just one leaf base, unlike onions, which are composed of numerous leaf layers. The above-ground portions of the garlic plant are also sometimes consumed, particularly while immature and tender.( Good in a salad so I am told)
Garlic has a powerful pungent or "hot" flavor when raw, which mellows considerably when it is cooked. Raw or cooked, garlic is noted for its strong characteristic odor, and for giving those who eat it a distinctive breath odor as well. Some cultures accept the odor of garlic more than others. Northern European cuisines, for example, use garlic only modestly and tend to cook it for long periods of time to diminish its strength.
Introduction 2 pages
Chapter 1
History of Garlic
From the earliest times garlic has been used as an article of diet (Yes that means more than 4000 years ago). It formed part of the food of the Israelites in Egypt and of the laborers employed by Khufu in the construction of his pyramid. Garlic is still grown in Egypt, where, however, the Syrian is the kind most esteemed.
It was largely consumed by the ancient Greek and Roman soldiers, sailors and rural classes, and, as Pliny tells us, by the African peasantry. Galen eulogizes it as the "rustic's theriac" (cure-all), and Alexander Neckam, a writer of the 12th century, recommends it as a palliative of the heat of the sun in field labor.
Pliny the Elder, in his Natural History, gives an exceedingly long list of scenarios in which it was considered beneficial. Dr. T. Sydenham valued it as an application in confluent smallpox, and, says Cullen, found some dropsies cured by it alone. Early in the 20th century, it was sometimes used in the treatment of pulmonary tuberculosis or phthisis.
Garlic was rare in traditional English cuisine (though it is stated to have been grown in England before 1548), and a much more common ingredient in western and southern Europe, notably in French cuisine. Garlic was placed by the ancient Greeks on the piles of stones at cross-roads, as a supper for Hecate (Theophrastus, Characters, The Superstitious Man); and according to Pliny, garlic and onions were invoked as deities by the Egyptians at the taking of oaths. The inhabitants of Pelusium in lower Egypt, who worshipped the onion, are said to have held both it and garlic in aversion as food.
To prevent the plant from running to leaf, Pliny advised bending the stalk downward and covering with earth; seeding, he observes, may be prevented by twisting the stalk (by "seeding", he mostly likely means the development of small, less potent bulbs).
Garlic is among the oldest known horticultural crops. In the Old World, Egyptian and Indian cultures referred to garlic 5000 years ago and there is clear historical evidence for its use by the Babylonians 4500 years ago and by the Chinese 2000 years ago. Some writings suggest that garlic was grown in China as far back as 4000 years ago.
Garlic grows wild only in Central Asia (centered in Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan) today. Earlier in history garlic grew wild over a much larger region and, in fact, wild garlic may have occurred in an area from China to India to Egypt to the Ukraine.
This region where garlic has grown in the wild is referred to as its "center of origin" since this is the geographic region where the crop originated and the only place where it flourished in the wild. In fact, although we sometimes hear about "wild garlic" elsewhere in the world, this is the only region where true garlic routinely grows in the wild without the assistance of human propagation.
There are other plants locally referred to as "wild garlic", but these are invariably other species of the garlic genus (Allium), not garlic itself (Allium sativum). For example, Allium vineale is a wild relative of garlic that occurs in North America and is commonly called "wild garlic".
The "center of origin" for a plant or animal species is also referred to as its "center of diversity" since it is here that the broadest range of genetic variation can be expected. That is why those of us who have sought to find new genetic variation in garlic have collected wild garlic in Central Asia.
Once cultivated by the first garlic farmers outside of its "center of origin", what types of garlic did early afficianados grow? In fact, we know almost nothing about the early types of garlic produced. No designation of garlic varieties was made in the early writings discovered to date, be it hardneck or softneck, red or white, early or late, local or exotic. Throughout its earlier history some have speculated that softneck garlic was the predominant type cultivated although evidence of what would be interpreted as a hardneck type was found interred in Egyptian tombs. It was not until garlic was cultivated in southern Europe within the last 1000 years that the distinction between hardneck and softneck was routinely noted. Until more ancient writings which describe garlic are found, or old, well-preserved samples are unearthed, we can only speculate about the early types of garlic grown.
Garlic producers and consumers have come through 5000 years of history growing and eating their crop with little need to specify type or variety. In fact it is a rather modern habit of only the last few hundred years whereby more detailed descriptions of varieties have come to be developed for any crop plant.
Chapter 2
Garlic Through The ages 10 pages
Chapter 3
Garlic the plant
Garlic has been used for thousands of years as a food additive and as medicine in China . The name is of Anglo-Saxon origin, derived from gar (a spear) and lac (a plant), referring to the shape of its leaves.
It belongs to the Liliaceae family and genus Allium, which has more than 600 available species. Included in this family are onions, shallots, leeks, Japanese bunching onions, Chinese and common chives. Mostly all Allium crops originate from the main center of Allium diversity that stretches from the Mediterranean basin to central Asia. Garlic has a long history of use throughout Europe as well, being used as a food additive and for various medicinal purposes, and has often been mentioned in folklore.
There is a Mohammedan legend that states: "When Satan stepped out from the Garden of Eden after the fall of man, Garlic sprang up from the spot where he placed his left foot, and Onion from that where his right foot touched". In some parts of Europe, there is a superstition that if a man running a race chews on a morsel of the bulb, it will prevent his competitors from passing him.
However, garlic is very important in many cultures for their cuisine. What would Chinese or Italian food be without garlic?
And its long history of medicinal uses are now being backed up by numerous studies proving its antibacterial and healing powers.
Center of Origin of Garlic
Garlic is believed to have originated in western China from around the Tien Shan Mountains to Kazakhstan and Kirgizstan. Vvedenskv proposed that garlic evolved from the wild species Allium longicuspus. The spread of garlic probably was first to the Old World and then to the New World.
Chromosome Number
Common garlic, found in supermarkets, has a somatic number of 2N=16 with a karyotypic formula of 6 metacentric chromosomes, 4 submetacentric chromosomes, and 6 acrocentric chromosomes. Garlic plants found in the Campania region of Italy were shown to be tetraploid with 4N=3 2.
Nutritive Value
While garlic is primarily used as an herb to enhance many food dishes in various cultures, many compounds can be found in its bulbs. It contains vitamins A and C, potassium, phosphorous, selenium, and a number of amino acids.
Most important are the over 75 sulfur containing compounds including alliin (S-allyl-Lcysteine sulfoxide). If the bulbs are ground or crushed, alliin is transformed into allicin (diallyldisulfide S-oxide), which the typical garlic odor is attributed. A broad spectrum of antibacterial properties is associated with allicin .
Medicinal Uses
In the 1970's many epidemiological and experimental studies provided evidence that garlic influences risk factors associated with heart disease, Feeding garlic to patients with coronary heart disease decreased serum cholesterol, triglycerides, LDL and VLDL and increased HDL levels. A 1993 study showed garlic can lower serum cholesterol by as much as 9 percent by stimulating the release of bile by the gallbladder and by decreasing the production of cholesterol in the liver. Garlic may also aid in the lowering of blood pressure by slowing the production of the body's pressure raising hormones.
Another benefit of garlic is its ability to relax vascular smooth muscle, which prevents the acute hypoxic increase in pulmonary pressure.
Garlic is also able to stimulate the immune system's macrophages, white blood cells that destroy foreign organisms. It also increases the activity of T-helper cells, and can be used to treat upper respiratory viral infections because of its ability to clear mucous from lungs, and help asthma patients.
During WWI garlic was used as an antiseptic for wounds and to treat typhus and dysentery, the Russians are sited as being the guys who did this as they did not have access to the new wonder drug Penicillin at that time, in fact lots of people did not have access to it as it was in very short supply.
Researchers have found that garlic blocks the action of certain enzymes that help infectious microbes survive in host tissue.
Potent antioxidants are found in garlic that protects cell membranes and DNA from damage. A study was done on different 22 vegetables and tea, it found garlic to be in the top quintile of ORACroo, or oxygen radical absorption capacity. Garlic also had the highest antioxidant activity against peroxyl radicals based on fresh weight. It also stimulates the production of the liver's detoxifying enzymes that neutralize carcinogens. Nitrosomes are carcinogens absorbed from food and water and can be blocked in a test tube by garlic.
This is evidence that higher intake of garlic may reduce some cancer type risks. Dietary intake of garlic is inversely related to the incidence of gastric cancer as shown in a study in Shandong Province, China. Chemical studies have shown diallyl sulfide to be the major active compound of garlic.
Morphology of Garlic
There are two distinctive botanical varieties of garlic recognized, Allium ophioscorodon (L.) and A. sativum (L.). Variety ophioscorodon is characterized by an initially coiled, tall woody scape with relatively few brownish-purple cloves per bulb.
The sativum variety, or common garlic, produces a weak flower stalk, if it bolts, and has a bulb with many pure white or pink-blushed bulblets. The bulb, or part which is eaten, is composed of numerous bulblets or cloves, they are enclosed in a whitish skin and grouped between membranous papery scales.
The leaves are like grass, long, narrow, and flat. If flowers are produced, they are at the end of a stalk rising directly from the bulb. The flowers, which are white, are grouped together in a globular head, or umbel, and are enclosed in a kind of leaf or spathe. Small bulbils may be produced to replace the flowers. The development of these aerial bulbils may be a result of domestication.
Cultivation of Garlic
Garlic is normally cultivated vegetatively. Garlic produces best in a rich, moist, sandy soil, but can also be grown in a loam or clay soil. A little lime should be added to the soil. The bulb should be divided into individual cloves, and these are planted separately about 6 inches apart and 2 inches deep. A sunny spot is best and weeding recommended while occasionally gathering the soil up around the roots.
A look at the effects different fertilizers can have on garlic showed that phosphorous can decrease plant height, average bulb weight, and marketable yield. Farmyard manure can also decrease the average bulb weight and marketable yield but increase the plant height.
The date that garlic is planted can have a significant effect on the yield. In one study, bulbs planted in the autumn increased total yield by 3.13 tons/ha and marketable yield by 2.93 tons/ha as compared, with bulbs planted in the spring. Trimming can also affect yield. Trimming an upright shoot can increase total yield by 10.07 tons/ha and 0.42 tons/ha for marketable yield. Therefore, if planting for higher yield, planting in the autumn and trimming the shoots can be very advantageous for greater bulb let production.
Chapter 4
Garlic the Varieties
German Red
Large bright purple bulb contains 8-12, extra easy-to-peel, round, light brown cloves with some purple at the base. Flavour is strong, hot, and spicy. Keeps moderately well when properly cured and stored. Can be grown in mild climates; however, develops better quality and size where winters are cold. Colour will become brighter if it is stressed by too much water.
Spanish Roja
Gourmet garlic famous for flavour! Light purple streaks on 7-13 easy-to-peel cloves. Suited to colder climates. May not yield well where winters are too mild. Very popular with market gardeners and restaurants. Brought to the Northwest before 1900; often called "Greek Blue" by Northwest gardeners.
Early Italian Purple
The bulb is large and white-skinned with purple stripes and numerous small cloves. This vigorous plant is better adapted to summer heat than Italian Late. Widely grown around Gilroy, California, the “garlic capital” of the world.
Inchelium Red
From Inchelium, WA, on the Colville Indian Reservation in the USA are large - to 3+ inches in diameter. 8-20 cloves of good size. Mild, but lasting, flavour, with a hint of hot! Dense cloves store well. Flavour can get stronger in storage. This vigorous soft-necked variety won a Rodale taste test of 20 garlic strains - named "Very Best of the Soft-Necks."
Chapter 5
Garlic and its uses 5 pages
Chapter 6
Medical effects of Garlic 5 pages
Chapter 7
10 Great uses of Garlic 10 pages
Chapter 8
Garlic Recipes 10 pages
Chapter 9
Notes 5 pages
Total Number of pages 82
Ass you can see the book could with a bit of effort be at least 82 pages long and if you added some copyright free pictures maybe the book would run to 95 pages. I reckon that someone else must have written a book on Garlic as it is such a popular cooking ingredient that selling such a book to a publisher would not be a problem.
You might think that saying all this stuff here would mean that I have no chance of making any money from doing such a book. But the truth be told I write because its fun and all my books have be made available under the share and share alike licence.
Book Layout for a book called Garlic Version 0.2
Garlic
Garlic or Allium sativum to give it its proper name is a perennial plant in the family Alliaceae and genus Allium, closely related to the onion, shallot, and leek. It does not grow in the wild ( not sure if this is right I am sure that I saw a programme on the television, where the guy presenting it had wild Garlic, I will have to check this), and is thought to have arisen in cultivation, probably descended from the species Allium longicuspis, which grows wild in south-western Asia. Garlic has been used throughout all of recorded history for both culinary and medicinal purposes (Here I want to say that recorded history means 4000 years or more)
The portion of the plant most often consumed is an underground storage structure called a head. A head of garlic is composed of a dozen or more discrete cloves, each of which is a botanical bulb, an underground structure comprised of thickened leaf bases. Each garlic clove is made up of just one leaf base, unlike onions, which are composed of numerous leaf layers. The above-ground portions of the garlic plant are also sometimes consumed, particularly while immature and tender.( Good in a salad so I am told)
Garlic has a powerful pungent or "hot" flavor when raw, which mellows considerably when it is cooked. Raw or cooked, garlic is noted for its strong characteristic odor, and for giving those who eat it a distinctive breath odor as well. Some cultures accept the odor of garlic more than others. Northern European cuisines, for example, use garlic only modestly and tend to cook it for long periods of time to diminish its strength.
Introduction 2 pages
Chapter 1
History of Garlic
From the earliest times garlic has been used as an article of diet (Yes that means more than 4000 years ago). It formed part of the food of the Israelites in Egypt and of the laborers employed by Khufu in the construction of his pyramid. Garlic is still grown in Egypt, where, however, the Syrian is the kind most esteemed.
It was largely consumed by the ancient Greek and Roman soldiers, sailors and rural classes, and, as Pliny tells us, by the African peasantry. Galen eulogizes it as the "rustic's theriac" (cure-all), and Alexander Neckam, a writer of the 12th century, recommends it as a palliative of the heat of the sun in field labor.
Pliny the Elder, in his Natural History, gives an exceedingly long list of scenarios in which it was considered beneficial. Dr. T. Sydenham valued it as an application in confluent smallpox, and, says Cullen, found some dropsies cured by it alone. Early in the 20th century, it was sometimes used in the treatment of pulmonary tuberculosis or phthisis.
Garlic was rare in traditional English cuisine (though it is stated to have been grown in England before 1548), and a much more common ingredient in western and southern Europe, notably in French cuisine. Garlic was placed by the ancient Greeks on the piles of stones at cross-roads, as a supper for Hecate (Theophrastus, Characters, The Superstitious Man); and according to Pliny, garlic and onions were invoked as deities by the Egyptians at the taking of oaths. The inhabitants of Pelusium in lower Egypt, who worshipped the onion, are said to have held both it and garlic in aversion as food.
To prevent the plant from running to leaf, Pliny advised bending the stalk downward and covering with earth; seeding, he observes, may be prevented by twisting the stalk (by "seeding", he mostly likely means the development of small, less potent bulbs).
Garlic is among the oldest known horticultural crops. In the Old World, Egyptian and Indian cultures referred to garlic 5000 years ago and there is clear historical evidence for its use by the Babylonians 4500 years ago and by the Chinese 2000 years ago. Some writings suggest that garlic was grown in China as far back as 4000 years ago.
Garlic grows wild only in Central Asia (centered in Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan) today. Earlier in history garlic grew wild over a much larger region and, in fact, wild garlic may have occurred in an area from China to India to Egypt to the Ukraine.
This region where garlic has grown in the wild is referred to as its "center of origin" since this is the geographic region where the crop originated and the only place where it flourished in the wild. In fact, although we sometimes hear about "wild garlic" elsewhere in the world, this is the only region where true garlic routinely grows in the wild without the assistance of human propagation.
There are other plants locally referred to as "wild garlic", but these are invariably other species of the garlic genus (Allium), not garlic itself (Allium sativum). For example, Allium vineale is a wild relative of garlic that occurs in North America and is commonly called "wild garlic".
The "center of origin" for a plant or animal species is also referred to as its "center of diversity" since it is here that the broadest range of genetic variation can be expected. That is why those of us who have sought to find new genetic variation in garlic have collected wild garlic in Central Asia.
Once cultivated by the first garlic farmers outside of its "center of origin", what types of garlic did early afficianados grow? In fact, we know almost nothing about the early types of garlic produced. No designation of garlic varieties was made in the early writings discovered to date, be it hardneck or softneck, red or white, early or late, local or exotic. Throughout its earlier history some have speculated that softneck garlic was the predominant type cultivated although evidence of what would be interpreted as a hardneck type was found interred in Egyptian tombs. It was not until garlic was cultivated in southern Europe within the last 1000 years that the distinction between hardneck and softneck was routinely noted. Until more ancient writings which describe garlic are found, or old, well-preserved samples are unearthed, we can only speculate about the early types of garlic grown.
Garlic producers and consumers have come through 5000 years of history growing and eating their crop with little need to specify type or variety. In fact it is a rather modern habit of only the last few hundred years whereby more detailed descriptions of varieties have come to be developed for any crop plant.
Chapter 2
Garlic Through The ages 10 pages
Chapter 3
Garlic the plant
Garlic has been used for thousands of years as a food additive and as medicine in China . The name is of Anglo-Saxon origin, derived from gar (a spear) and lac (a plant), referring to the shape of its leaves.
It belongs to the Liliaceae family and genus Allium, which has more than 600 available species. Included in this family are onions, shallots, leeks, Japanese bunching onions, Chinese and common chives. Mostly all Allium crops originate from the main center of Allium diversity that stretches from the Mediterranean basin to central Asia. Garlic has a long history of use throughout Europe as well, being used as a food additive and for various medicinal purposes, and has often been mentioned in folklore.
There is a Mohammedan legend that states: "When Satan stepped out from the Garden of Eden after the fall of man, Garlic sprang up from the spot where he placed his left foot, and Onion from that where his right foot touched". In some parts of Europe, there is a superstition that if a man running a race chews on a morsel of the bulb, it will prevent his competitors from passing him.
However, garlic is very important in many cultures for their cuisine. What would Chinese or Italian food be without garlic?
And its long history of medicinal uses are now being backed up by numerous studies proving its antibacterial and healing powers.
Center of Origin of Garlic
Garlic is believed to have originated in western China from around the Tien Shan Mountains to Kazakhstan and Kirgizstan. Vvedenskv proposed that garlic evolved from the wild species Allium longicuspus. The spread of garlic probably was first to the Old World and then to the New World.
Chromosome Number
Common garlic, found in supermarkets, has a somatic number of 2N=16 with a karyotypic formula of 6 metacentric chromosomes, 4 submetacentric chromosomes, and 6 acrocentric chromosomes. Garlic plants found in the Campania region of Italy were shown to be tetraploid with 4N=3 2.
Nutritive Value
While garlic is primarily used as an herb to enhance many food dishes in various cultures, many compounds can be found in its bulbs. It contains vitamins A and C, potassium, phosphorous, selenium, and a number of amino acids.
Most important are the over 75 sulfur containing compounds including alliin (S-allyl-Lcysteine sulfoxide). If the bulbs are ground or crushed, alliin is transformed into allicin (diallyldisulfide S-oxide), which the typical garlic odor is attributed. A broad spectrum of antibacterial properties is associated with allicin .
Medicinal Uses
In the 1970's many epidemiological and experimental studies provided evidence that garlic influences risk factors associated with heart disease, Feeding garlic to patients with coronary heart disease decreased serum cholesterol, triglycerides, LDL and VLDL and increased HDL levels. A 1993 study showed garlic can lower serum cholesterol by as much as 9 percent by stimulating the release of bile by the gallbladder and by decreasing the production of cholesterol in the liver. Garlic may also aid in the lowering of blood pressure by slowing the production of the body's pressure raising hormones.
Another benefit of garlic is its ability to relax vascular smooth muscle, which prevents the acute hypoxic increase in pulmonary pressure.
Garlic is also able to stimulate the immune system's macrophages, white blood cells that destroy foreign organisms. It also increases the activity of T-helper cells, and can be used to treat upper respiratory viral infections because of its ability to clear mucous from lungs, and help asthma patients.
During WWI garlic was used as an antiseptic for wounds and to treat typhus and dysentery, the Russians are sited as being the guys who did this as they did not have access to the new wonder drug Penicillin at that time, in fact lots of people did not have access to it as it was in very short supply.
Researchers have found that garlic blocks the action of certain enzymes that help infectious microbes survive in host tissue.
Potent antioxidants are found in garlic that protects cell membranes and DNA from damage. A study was done on different 22 vegetables and tea, it found garlic to be in the top quintile of ORACroo, or oxygen radical absorption capacity. Garlic also had the highest antioxidant activity against peroxyl radicals based on fresh weight. It also stimulates the production of the liver's detoxifying enzymes that neutralize carcinogens. Nitrosomes are carcinogens absorbed from food and water and can be blocked in a test tube by garlic.
This is evidence that higher intake of garlic may reduce some cancer type risks. Dietary intake of garlic is inversely related to the incidence of gastric cancer as shown in a study in Shandong Province, China. Chemical studies have shown diallyl sulfide to be the major active compound of garlic.
Morphology of Garlic
There are two distinctive botanical varieties of garlic recognized, Allium ophioscorodon (L.) and A. sativum (L.). Variety ophioscorodon is characterized by an initially coiled, tall woody scape with relatively few brownish-purple cloves per bulb.
The sativum variety, or common garlic, produces a weak flower stalk, if it bolts, and has a bulb with many pure white or pink-blushed bulblets. The bulb, or part which is eaten, is composed of numerous bulblets or cloves, they are enclosed in a whitish skin and grouped between membranous papery scales.
The leaves are like grass, long, narrow, and flat. If flowers are produced, they are at the end of a stalk rising directly from the bulb. The flowers, which are white, are grouped together in a globular head, or umbel, and are enclosed in a kind of leaf or spathe. Small bulbils may be produced to replace the flowers. The development of these aerial bulbils may be a result of domestication.
Cultivation of Garlic
Garlic is normally cultivated vegetatively. Garlic produces best in a rich, moist, sandy soil, but can also be grown in a loam or clay soil. A little lime should be added to the soil. The bulb should be divided into individual cloves, and these are planted separately about 6 inches apart and 2 inches deep. A sunny spot is best and weeding recommended while occasionally gathering the soil up around the roots.
A look at the effects different fertilizers can have on garlic showed that phosphorous can decrease plant height, average bulb weight, and marketable yield. Farmyard manure can also decrease the average bulb weight and marketable yield but increase the plant height.
The date that garlic is planted can have a significant effect on the yield. In one study, bulbs planted in the autumn increased total yield by 3.13 tons/ha and marketable yield by 2.93 tons/ha as compared, with bulbs planted in the spring. Trimming can also affect yield. Trimming an upright shoot can increase total yield by 10.07 tons/ha and 0.42 tons/ha for marketable yield. Therefore, if planting for higher yield, planting in the autumn and trimming the shoots can be very advantageous for greater bulb let production.
Chapter 4
Garlic the Varieties
German Red
Large bright purple bulb contains 8-12, extra easy-to-peel, round, light brown cloves with some purple at the base. Flavour is strong, hot, and spicy. Keeps moderately well when properly cured and stored. Can be grown in mild climates; however, develops better quality and size where winters are cold. Colour will become brighter if it is stressed by too much water.
Spanish Roja
Gourmet garlic famous for flavour! Light purple streaks on 7-13 easy-to-peel cloves. Suited to colder climates. May not yield well where winters are too mild. Very popular with market gardeners and restaurants. Brought to the Northwest before 1900; often called "Greek Blue" by Northwest gardeners.
Early Italian Purple
The bulb is large and white-skinned with purple stripes and numerous small cloves. This vigorous plant is better adapted to summer heat than Italian Late. Widely grown around Gilroy, California, the “garlic capital” of the world.
Inchelium Red
From Inchelium, WA, on the Colville Indian Reservation in the USA are large - to 3+ inches in diameter. 8-20 cloves of good size. Mild, but lasting, flavour, with a hint of hot! Dense cloves store well. Flavour can get stronger in storage. This vigorous soft-necked variety won a Rodale taste test of 20 garlic strains - named "Very Best of the Soft-Necks."
Chapter 5
Garlic and its uses 5 pages
Chapter 6
Medical effects of Garlic 5 pages
Chapter 7
10 Great uses of Garlic 10 pages
Chapter 8
Garlic Recipes 10 pages
Chapter 9
Notes 5 pages
Total Number of pages 82
Ass you can see the book could with a bit of effort be at least 82 pages long and if you added some copyright free pictures maybe the book would run to 95 pages. I reckon that someone else must have written a book on Garlic as it is such a popular cooking ingredient that selling such a book to a publisher would not be a problem.
You might think that saying all this stuff here would mean that I have no chance of making any money from doing such a book. But the truth be told I write because its fun and all my books have be made available under the share and share alike licence.
15 January, 2006
Engines of power?
This is a note to my notebook
I had a strange thought the other day while watching a programme about rocket powered cars. I think the programme was on one of the satellite channels that we have here at home. Now my thought was not about the rocket car itself. It was about cars in general and at some stage, I don’t know how long it took but I got to think about the engines in cars and then on to the internal combustion engine (see that jump in thoughts did you?)
Now my thoughts were along the lines of the petrol engine, which has now been around for what 90 odd years? just how much of it has been improved?
I do know that parts are now made to better tolerances and that the weight of engines has come down as new materials have been found and used in the manufacture of engines. I also know that the oils used in the engines are much lighter and do a better job of making the metal parts not stick together (which is apparently a good thing).
I believe that the spark plugs and the way the fuel is put into the engine has also been improved over the years, the valves that control the way air and the exhaust are controlled have been made lighter and better, meaning I think that they will last longer.
But as this was my question to myself, is the engine of today any more efficient than say one of 10, 20 or 30 years ago? I don’t have an answer to this question, going onto the internet and giving Google a good going over also failed to give my any real answers, perhaps no one has asked this question? I don’t know. I do know that some one could have a great engineering thesis on it.
One other thought that I did have was this has the design of the pistons changed much in the 90 years that have gone by; it’s true that the material that is used to make the pistons has changed generally to lighter materials. Has the shape changed? Have the piston rings changed in shape and the material that they are made of?
I don’t know the answers to these questions, now the clever people out there might have the answer to these silly questions, what I want to know is there a way to improve the internal combustion engine?
Could you for instance change the shape of the piston? The shape of the piston rings? The shape of the oil sump? Or change what material they are made from?
Would any of these changes make any difference to how efficient the engine is?
I know that a lot of the energy in petrol ends up as heat and not motive power, is there a way of making sure that some of that heat is not produced and is put into moving the car?
I had a strange thought the other day while watching a programme about rocket powered cars. I think the programme was on one of the satellite channels that we have here at home. Now my thought was not about the rocket car itself. It was about cars in general and at some stage, I don’t know how long it took but I got to think about the engines in cars and then on to the internal combustion engine (see that jump in thoughts did you?)
Now my thoughts were along the lines of the petrol engine, which has now been around for what 90 odd years? just how much of it has been improved?
I do know that parts are now made to better tolerances and that the weight of engines has come down as new materials have been found and used in the manufacture of engines. I also know that the oils used in the engines are much lighter and do a better job of making the metal parts not stick together (which is apparently a good thing).
I believe that the spark plugs and the way the fuel is put into the engine has also been improved over the years, the valves that control the way air and the exhaust are controlled have been made lighter and better, meaning I think that they will last longer.
But as this was my question to myself, is the engine of today any more efficient than say one of 10, 20 or 30 years ago? I don’t have an answer to this question, going onto the internet and giving Google a good going over also failed to give my any real answers, perhaps no one has asked this question? I don’t know. I do know that some one could have a great engineering thesis on it.
One other thought that I did have was this has the design of the pistons changed much in the 90 years that have gone by; it’s true that the material that is used to make the pistons has changed generally to lighter materials. Has the shape changed? Have the piston rings changed in shape and the material that they are made of?
I don’t know the answers to these questions, now the clever people out there might have the answer to these silly questions, what I want to know is there a way to improve the internal combustion engine?
Could you for instance change the shape of the piston? The shape of the piston rings? The shape of the oil sump? Or change what material they are made from?
Would any of these changes make any difference to how efficient the engine is?
I know that a lot of the energy in petrol ends up as heat and not motive power, is there a way of making sure that some of that heat is not produced and is put into moving the car?
14 January, 2006
Above the Title
Above the Title As you know if you have looked at this blog I am into radio mainly BBC Radio 4, but I do have other interests as well. Because of this love for radio, it goes without saying that one of my websites that I have is on a radio Producer/Director, who many people think (me included) that he is the best currently in the world in the gene that he works in.
So what that got to do with the link above?
well and this really is the easy part, one of the production companies that Dirk Maggs has done work for is Above the Title and I also happen to like programmes that they have produced that have nothing to do with Dirk Maggs (strange that!).
So I thought I would give a link here to them, as they are working in an area of broadcasting that is already hard, and I suspect that will continue to get harder still.
I think at some time in the future they will also make the jump to a podcast type arrangement. Which is also something that I think the BBC will also move to (Not sure how you make money on a podcast, but someone somewhere will in time work that bit out).
The question that has to be answered is whether or not more people will get to hear some of the really great radio that Dirk Maggs, the BBC and all the other production companies like Above the Title produce, a lot of the output has to be in the top five in the world. Just don't take my words for it get out there and have a look and give your ears a treat.
So what that got to do with the link above?
well and this really is the easy part, one of the production companies that Dirk Maggs has done work for is Above the Title and I also happen to like programmes that they have produced that have nothing to do with Dirk Maggs (strange that!).
So I thought I would give a link here to them, as they are working in an area of broadcasting that is already hard, and I suspect that will continue to get harder still.
I think at some time in the future they will also make the jump to a podcast type arrangement. Which is also something that I think the BBC will also move to (Not sure how you make money on a podcast, but someone somewhere will in time work that bit out).
The question that has to be answered is whether or not more people will get to hear some of the really great radio that Dirk Maggs, the BBC and all the other production companies like Above the Title produce, a lot of the output has to be in the top five in the world. Just don't take my words for it get out there and have a look and give your ears a treat.
13 January, 2006
The system of the world
Good news, well it is for me, I have finally finished the book that I have only been reading at dinner times. The names of the book is "The System of The World" written by Neal Stephenson, its the 3rd book in the series called baraoc cycle.
All I can say is that its a great read and a great end to the series so far, because I think that there could be more yet to come, well I hope so
All I can say is that its a great read and a great end to the series so far, because I think that there could be more yet to come, well I hope so
12 January, 2006
apache friends - xampp
apache friends - xampp This is a site that i have just found hopefully I can play with the wiki side of thing on my own computer without the rest of the world getting in the way, well that's the idea here.
It a great setup as I did in the past try to set up my own MYSQL and Apache system on windows and well, I had great trouble getting Perl to work and it being seen by the wiki and other stuff that I was trying to use. So this set up has it all for you just install and a way you go. For me it took longer to download it than it did to install and be fully up and running so yes will like this web site.
It a great setup as I did in the past try to set up my own MYSQL and Apache system on windows and well, I had great trouble getting Perl to work and it being seen by the wiki and other stuff that I was trying to use. So this set up has it all for you just install and a way you go. For me it took longer to download it than it did to install and be fully up and running so yes will like this web site.
11 January, 2006
Gallery2:Download - Gallery Codex
Gallery2:Download - Gallery Codex This a programme that I have so far not been able to install on my webspace, not to sure why as the website meets all the specs that the programme ask's for.
What's really strange is that the old version of the programme version 1.0 worked okay, so go figure.
What's really strange is that the old version of the programme version 1.0 worked okay, so go figure.
10 January, 2006
Inside AdSense: Let's start a resolution
Inside AdSense: Let's start a resolution As you can see I have put up Google ads at the top of my blog and also on my main website( the idea being to help pay for the website, but at the rate of 11 cents a day I am never going to get rich or pay for the website oh well) the main reason for the link to google is that I love the idea that although they are running a bussiness they still have time to have some fun.. which I think is great!
Now I just wonder if my website and this notebook/blog are well to boring or specalised...
Now I just wonder if my website and this notebook/blog are well to boring or specalised...
102
Wow blog 102, not sure what to say to myself, but as this is my notebook, well done keep up the good work.
Dirk Maggs Radio Production Links
Dirk Maggs Radio Production Links This is my list of production companies that Dirk Maggs has worked for, do you know any of them?
09 January, 2006
Lorelei King Actor
Lorelei King Actor this is still the top page on my Dirk Maggs site, why? when you do a search I know that I am number one in Google if you put her name in but I have yet to work out how others are finding her.
Just had one thought maybe people are getting her name off cd's that she did the narration for?
Just had one thought maybe people are getting her name off cd's that she did the narration for?
08 January, 2006
Opps
I have to say sorry here to Vitriolica and her blog which I had a blog about. Seems that I decided that she lives in Malta, when any fool knows from reading her site that she comes from Portugal!.
I have had an email from her telling me... so I say sorry ..me thinks I might need an atlas.
I have had an email from her telling me... so I say sorry ..me thinks I might need an atlas.
BBC NEWS | Magazine | The million-dollar student
BBC NEWS Magazine The million-dollar student I am not a happy chap after seeing this just now, as I had had the same idea only yesterday and now I find some one has go to it before me.
This means that I shall have to have another great idea that will make me rich.
This means that I shall have to have another great idea that will make me rich.
vitriolica webb's ite
vitriolica webb's ite This is one of the Blogsites that I like to vist, her art work that she does is well great It allways has something to say and her view of the world from Malta is great, so much so that I had to look it up on the web to find out just where it was, now if that is not dedication then I don't know what is.
So it's a great site and has given me many laughs.
So it's a great site and has given me many laughs.
07 January, 2006
Propellerhead Software
Propellerhead Software
For a while now I have been trying out Reason 3 the demo from Propellerhead Software, now as demo's go it gives you a good idea just what this musoic studio software can do, and I must admit that I have been having fun.
Progress is not going to be swift as I have not decant soundcard or a midi keyboard, but the tracks that I have heard form others who have all the right kit have been well... great, so I suspect I will never buy the software at 300 UK pounds as I will also have to buy a midi keyboard and also a soundcard that does not sound like a rusty old can and that lot would come to more than the computer I would try to run it on
For a while now I have been trying out Reason 3 the demo from Propellerhead Software, now as demo's go it gives you a good idea just what this musoic studio software can do, and I must admit that I have been having fun.
Progress is not going to be swift as I have not decant soundcard or a midi keyboard, but the tracks that I have heard form others who have all the right kit have been well... great, so I suspect I will never buy the software at 300 UK pounds as I will also have to buy a midi keyboard and also a soundcard that does not sound like a rusty old can and that lot would come to more than the computer I would try to run it on
Reading List 2006
As I said in an ealier blog note I have been lucky in that for xmas I got a few book tokens and the bookshop that I was in was doing a 3 books for the price of 2, and to me that was a real good deal as I got 70 UK pounds of books for 25 UK pounds, if this is a repeat of what I said earlier and the figures don't tally up the reason for this is that I did actually look up the cost of each book.
So as I said here are the books that I have to read over the next few months, I can say here that I am looking forward to it, the reading that is.
1. Richard Dawkins "The Ancestor's Tale" I have been waiting for this to come out in paperback as the hard back was just too much money.
2. Nick Mason "Inside out (A Personal history of Pink Floyd)" This was a book that I did not know anything about, but I like 2 of there albums, one of which is "Darkside of the Moon"
3. Iain M. Banks "The Algebraist" Not much to say I have read all his other books and this is the latest book in paperback so I had to get it, it's just a pity that he does not write more, my understanding is that he writes a book in 2 months and then has the rest of the year of, not sure if that's true or not.
4. Jeremy Clarkson "The world according to Clarkson" This man presents a show on BBC about cars and well just look up Top Gear and you will see what I mean, I like him as he is not affriad to say what he thinks, so this book which apperas to be a collection of his writing he does for the Sunday Times.
5. Charlie Connelly "Attention All Shipping" This was a book that I heard on BBC Radio 4 in there book of the week slot and now atlast I can read the book myself.
6. NewScientist "Does Anything Eat Wasps?" just got this as some of the questions in it are things that at one time or another I have come up with, but did not have anyone to answer them for me.
7. Alastair Reynolds "Century Rain" Having read all his books and I have to say I am a fan, I had to get this one and in paperback.
8. Alastair Reynolds "Pushing Ice" This book I did not buy as it was given as an xmas present, but it's in my stake of books to read.
So as you can see from above I have alot of reading to do, and I think from where I am sitting at this time all the books look like they will give me a loy of pleasure.
So as I said here are the books that I have to read over the next few months, I can say here that I am looking forward to it, the reading that is.
1. Richard Dawkins "The Ancestor's Tale" I have been waiting for this to come out in paperback as the hard back was just too much money.
2. Nick Mason "Inside out (A Personal history of Pink Floyd)" This was a book that I did not know anything about, but I like 2 of there albums, one of which is "Darkside of the Moon"
3. Iain M. Banks "The Algebraist" Not much to say I have read all his other books and this is the latest book in paperback so I had to get it, it's just a pity that he does not write more, my understanding is that he writes a book in 2 months and then has the rest of the year of, not sure if that's true or not.
4. Jeremy Clarkson "The world according to Clarkson" This man presents a show on BBC about cars and well just look up Top Gear and you will see what I mean, I like him as he is not affriad to say what he thinks, so this book which apperas to be a collection of his writing he does for the Sunday Times.
5. Charlie Connelly "Attention All Shipping" This was a book that I heard on BBC Radio 4 in there book of the week slot and now atlast I can read the book myself.
6. NewScientist "Does Anything Eat Wasps?" just got this as some of the questions in it are things that at one time or another I have come up with, but did not have anyone to answer them for me.
7. Alastair Reynolds "Century Rain" Having read all his books and I have to say I am a fan, I had to get this one and in paperback.
8. Alastair Reynolds "Pushing Ice" This book I did not buy as it was given as an xmas present, but it's in my stake of books to read.
So as you can see from above I have alot of reading to do, and I think from where I am sitting at this time all the books look like they will give me a loy of pleasure.
Odd Thoughts From a High Desk: UK Population
Odd Thoughts From a High Desk: UK Population This test did not work, So i don't know how to get this to work.
UK Population
This is a test to see if I can use Excel in my posts, this is my best guess using internet and censes returns for what the UK population is.
Version 1.2 06.01.2006
06 January, 2006
MediaWiki FAQ - Meta
MediaWiki FAQ - Meta Just a little bit of background first as you may or may not know I have several websites that I run for fun, they have been around now for some time and so have grown just a bit eg some 100 to 200 pages each, so as you can imagine updating them by hand is getting , well a pain in the butt. So one of the grand plans that I have had is to convert my Dirk Maggs website, which is the oldest and larest site on Dirk to a Wiki. The wiki has been in beta for more than 2 years, due to an unfortant accident in doing an upgrade and backups not working, the database had to be started from the very start eg zero items in the database.
The database or wiki is called Maggsium the basic site is now up and working well, you have to be registered to enter information, but apart form that you can do all most anything you want. The wiki will allow you to upload copyright free pictures. It has at the last count eg yesterday 471 items which covers every radio play that Dirk has produced that is known about. It has taken some 200 to 300 hours to get all that information into the database.
Now the bad news
The wiki needs updating due to a problem with something that Microsoft have or have not done, don't ask me as I just do not understand what they are talking about. The bad news is that the last time I did an update it broke the database and thats when I found out that my secure backups did not work.
So the link above is to show the kind of information that is out there when talking about wiki's and how to work with the internal bits and peices that go to makeing the programme do what it does.
The problem is I don't understand all thats in the manuals, so I know I have got to do the upgrade but I also do not want to loose all that very hard work that I have done. So at this moment in time I just don't know what to do.
I will not just yet give out the url for Maggsium as it's not ready, it's very close but there are still a few things that need to be done on it, the delay is me understanding how to do some of the things I want done.
When Maggsium is a goer then I will give out the url.
The database or wiki is called Maggsium the basic site is now up and working well, you have to be registered to enter information, but apart form that you can do all most anything you want. The wiki will allow you to upload copyright free pictures. It has at the last count eg yesterday 471 items which covers every radio play that Dirk has produced that is known about. It has taken some 200 to 300 hours to get all that information into the database.
Now the bad news
The wiki needs updating due to a problem with something that Microsoft have or have not done, don't ask me as I just do not understand what they are talking about. The bad news is that the last time I did an update it broke the database and thats when I found out that my secure backups did not work.
So the link above is to show the kind of information that is out there when talking about wiki's and how to work with the internal bits and peices that go to makeing the programme do what it does.
The problem is I don't understand all thats in the manuals, so I know I have got to do the upgrade but I also do not want to loose all that very hard work that I have done. So at this moment in time I just don't know what to do.
I will not just yet give out the url for Maggsium as it's not ready, it's very close but there are still a few things that need to be done on it, the delay is me understanding how to do some of the things I want done.
When Maggsium is a goer then I will give out the url.
My 2005 Fav Pics on Flickr - Photo Sharing!
My 2005 Fav Pics on Flickr - Photo Sharing! The title says it all but there are some great pictures out there and these are the ones that I liked the most.
BBC NEWS | Science/Nature | Nasa team sees explosion on Moon
BBC NEWS Science/Nature Nasa team sees explosion on MoonThis is a news story that caught my eye today, The story is now a couple of days old but I have only just found it. What amases me is that no one appears to be looking at the moon these days, is that because been there done that or is it that nothing ever happens on the Moon lets go at look somewhere else? Me? I think that its the nothing ever happens on the Moon one. I wounder if now that this story has broken people will see that a rock from space can happen anytime and that it can be any size. Makes me think what would the news have been like if the rock that hit the Moon had been, say 1000 times bigger. I bet that that would have got lots of people very intrested in whats going on on the Moon. I know that looking at the Moon would cost money but is that not true of all science projects, don't some projects get funded with the chance of a 100 percent outcome as well not likely, So maybe just looking at the Moon could be one of those projects, maybe Moon watching will give us a clue as to just how often you can expect to get hit by a chunk of rock moving at very high speed without any notice that its about to happen. No dout some clever person will say that the Earth is overdue a vist from a large chunk of rock, if that's so then I just do not want to know, thank you very much.
PocketPCFreewares
PocketPCFreewares This is a site that I look at at least once a week. mainly cause I do have a pocket PC which is now getting on in years and a lot of the new commercial software does not work on my old pocket pc. There have been a couple of freeware programs that I would have never of found if it wasn't for this site. A lot of the programms where are are written by people who found they needed to do a certian task and that there was no other software around that could do the job. All I do know is that its a great site and have helped get even more out of my pocket pc than I thought was possable.
05 January, 2006
Lorelei King Actor
Lorelei King Actor This page which is from my Dirk Maggs website has so far been the most popular page, not sure why but I must admit that I think she has a great voice.
04 January, 2006
Odd Thoughts from a High Desk
Odd Thoughts from a High Desk
This is my other blog that I have, I have to decide which one to keep going.
This is my other blog that I have, I have to decide which one to keep going.
Main Page - Maggsium
Main Page - Maggsium
Good news on my wiki database on Dirk Maggs, all the radio plays that he has done upto 2005 are now in the database, a total of 471 pages so far.
Good news on my wiki database on Dirk Maggs, all the radio plays that he has done upto 2005 are now in the database, a total of 471 pages so far.
03 January, 2006
Miss May Part 2
This is that second picture I Told you about ealier, I still don not know her website address, all I do know is that she is from London.
Main Page - Maggsium
Main Page - Maggsium
I am happy to say that my Dirk Maggs wiki has now got to 405 articles.
So as I use this blog as a digital notebook which I allow someone else to backup for me I just thought I would make a note to myself, to record this big event.
Next big event on the wiki apart for getting some registered users( the sites free, it just to stop spam) is 500 articles so me wonder's how long that will take as its take nearly 9 months to get to 400.
02 January, 2006
SS Great Britain - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
SS Great Britain - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia This ship is one of the nicest ships that I have been on, which is not saying much as I have not been on many! anyway this ship Isaw when I was quite young and all that I can remember about it was that they had only just started to restore it. One thing that I want to do in 2006 is to go and see it as it would be nice to see what they have managed to do in the 20 odd years since I last saw it. It goes without saying that when I vist this ship I want the weather to be blue sky with lots of sunshine. So you just know what that means don't you! yep I rekon it will be raining, but as you can now get inside part of the ship this should not be too bad, Of coarse I do want to see the outside of the ship so thats when I will get soaked to the skin. I will have to let you know if I get there this year.
BBC NEWS | Science/Nature | Beagle 2 probe 'spotted' on Mars
BBC NEWS Science/Nature Beagle 2 probe 'spotted' on MarsJust seen this item while bouncing around the net, I am glad that they think they know what happened to the probe, still it is sad that it did not land and work. The good news is that with a new NASA probe that has far better cameras we may know the truth one way or another.
Main Page - Dirk Maggs
Main Page - Dirk Maggs Just like to put in my notebook here what happens when a wiki breaks, and after some 300 to 400 hours, to say that I am not a happy camper is well just an understatement.
01 January, 2006
Oh By the Way
Oh just realised that its the new year and here I am doing my 3rd post to this blog, like wow what ever. The task for the next day or so is to finish the updates to the website for 2006 eg copyrights and links, you know that sort of thing. I have also started to ad adverts to the James Follett website that I do as hopefully away of paying towards the running costs. As it cost about 50 UK pounds to run the site.
James Follett 2000s Novels
James Follett 2000s Novels This is just a note to myself to make sure that I update this page so that it looks better than this, well its a bit boring to say the least. One problem is that I don't have a clue as to how to inprove it, and also I just do not have a graphic minded bone in my body which does tend to make it just a bit hard as to what to do.
Last_Sunset_2005_Hampstead_01 on Flickr - Photo Sharing!
Last_Sunset_2005_Hampstead_01 on Flickr - Photo Sharing! Just seeing if I can link to a Flicker picture and if you can see it
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)