By Righty
But the question is, for how long?
Since September 2008 the Collider, which some thought would most certainly cause the end of the earth, has been anything but reliable.
from Daily Mail -
Scientists have restarted the world largest atom smasher over-night, in a fresh bid to uncover the secrets of the universe.
The European Organization for Nuclear Research, or CERN, sent low energy beams of protons in both directions around the 17-mile particle accelerator under the Swiss-French border at Geneva.
After a cautious trial period, CERN plans to ramp up the energy of the beams to unprecedented levels and start record-setting collisions of protons by late March, spokeswoman Christine Sutton said.
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By Righty
View Easy Bake Oven slideshow from Salon.com
That’s a picture of the 1960′s Easy-Bake Oven like the one I baked with. It was my younger sister’s, but I used it more than she did (she never was much of a cook until she had a family of her own). I can still taste my specialty…the doughy apple pie made with tiny dehydrated apples. Simply a masterpiece!
No, the Easy-Bake Oven was not a toy. It was real baking that I could do unsupervised from start to finish. We also had a snow cone machine – that wasn’t a toy either. But it wasn’t the same. I didn’t grow up with a love for making snow cones. I did grow up with a love for cooking. And just as I enjoyed the reaction of people when the tasted what I made from my Easy-Bake Oven, I admit I still like to hear people say they enjoy what I cook for them.
My daughter had an entire plastic kitchen set with plastic food that she pretended to buy in her plastic shopping cart, which she then put in the plastic refrigerator, and then pretended to cook on a plastic stove. She spent hours pretending. You can’t compare that to an Easy-Bake Oven.
from Salon.com -
About 50 years ago, walking through New York City, inventor Ronald Howes was struck by the way street vendors kept their food warm using heating lamps. In the cartoon version of this scene, we can see the light bulb from a vendor’s cart float to the air above Howes’s head, where it pops in a flash of genius. Light bulb … heat … cooking… There amongst the pretzel carts, Howes conceived of the Easy-Bake Oven, a child-sized appliance that uses 100-watt incandescents to bake tiny cakes.
Howes died last week at age 83, but even before memorials started flooding the internet, websites like “Feeling Retro” had archived hundreds of Easy-Bake memories. Salon spoke with professional chefs who credit their Easy-Bakes for career inspiration, and even research scientists who engage in very serious studies about play were not immune to nostalgic pangs. It might seem easy to explain the Easy-Bake Oven’s power over children: it is a toy that makes cake; a perfect storm of passionate kid desire. But let’s face it: not even the most swooning devotee was in it for the plasticky taste of the treats. So why does the Easy-Bake Oven have such power over us?
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