meals
Latest
Dear Veronica: A taste for laziness
#fivemin-widget-blogsmith-image-703838{display:none;} .cke_show_borders #fivemin-widget-blogsmith-image-703838, #postcontentcontainer #fivemin-widget-blogsmith-image-703838{width:100%;display:block;} try{document.getElementById("fivemin-widget-blogsmith-image-703838").style.display="none";}catch(e){} OK, the title is a little inflammatory. I know that not everyone using meal delivery services are lazy -- heck, some people have things like children and full-time jobs to think about! But there are alternatives out there, and Gabi Moskowitz of the BrokeAss Gourmet has the answers for you. Since it's tax time (ugh), I also talk about ways to make the whole process a lot easier using Dropbox. It's tough enough paying Uncle Sam; might as well ease the burden a bit!
The Daily Grind: Do you eat while you play?
MMOs are time-consuming in a way that few other games are. The oldest games often asked people to sit and camp monsters for hours on end, the sort of thing that required a long vigil and continued attention. Those days are largely gone, but even in games supporting more bite-sized chunks of content, there's still a strong incentive for long leveling sessions and chain-running dungeons. Considering that you're likely in a game that's overflowing with food items, either from crafting or as background ambiance, it's understandable why you might want to get a bite to eat. And if you're just going to go back to playing after you're done eating, why wait? Sometimes you really can't eat at your desk (or wherever you play), and sometimes you don't want to. But as a rule, do you eat while you play your game of choice? Or do you step away from the game to have a snack? Every morning, the Massively bloggers probe the minds of their readers with deep, thought-provoking questions about that most serious of topics: massively online gaming. We crave your opinions, so grab your caffeinated beverage of choice and chime in on today's Daily Grind!
Cameraphone app analyzes your meal, disgusts you with factual calorie counts
It's a hard truth that's easy to swallow: our cubicle-dwelling lifestyles often get the best of our waistlines. We try to diet, but without a never-ending pile of Cheetos and Chicken McNuggets next to our laptops, we feel so very, very, very....alone. Luckily a Japanese company has developed a software companion to keep us company on our slimming endeavors: it's an app that will analyze a photo of your meal and tell you how many calories you're about to consume. While it can't actually prevent the food from hopping down our throats (2.0, maybe?) it will allow your meal's calorie content to be socially networked with your friends' meals' calorie contents, creating a weird long-distance eating competition with other connected dieters. But hold the Pad See Ew -- while it's good at figuring out Japanese staples, it's "not so good on stuff like Thai food." [Photo courtesy tnarik's flickr]
Accenture developing virtual meal technology, brings videoconferencing to the dinner table
If you're just finishing up what was likely a delicious and fulfilling Christmas dinner with your friends and family, connecting with loved ones probably isn't a problem at the moment, but for elderly and single folks who live alone and far away from old friends and relatives, Accenture is looking to expand their dinner tables as far as the webcam can see. The "virtual meal technology" seeks to aggrandize the dining room beyond a single home, allowing folks to enjoy separate meals while conversing together in real-time. Utilizing the basic premise found in videoconferencing, the plans are to unveil an (almost) automatic system that doesn't require a great deal of know-how in order to operate, with prototypes "automatically detecting" when someone is about to eat supper, and then searching for available family members that would also be interested in scarfing down some grub while chatting it up over the system. The firm is also pushing the medical aspects of such an invention, as it reports that "elderly people who eat alone often don't eat enough or eat the wrong kinds of food," which would allow younger family members to correct those eating habits before more serious health issues develop from malnutrition. While the company hasn't released any draft equipment just yet, it's hoping to have a prototype system available "in around two years," and while it's aiming for the "$500 to $1,000 range" per household, things could get a lot cheaper if your insurance company ends up footing the bill.
Big mother is watching kids' lunches
Remember the days when cafeteria lunches always had at least one or two treasures in otherwise less-than-appetizing offerings? Thanks (or no thanks) to clever online systems like MealpayPlus and ParentOnline, kids can be banned from those delectable desserts and forced to ingest the nauseating tuna surprise. Pre-payment operations allow parents to choose what items can be chosen by their children, what quantities can be consumed, and what foods cannot be taken. If a rebellious student attempts to purchase a prohibited item, the cashier is alerted and the item must be returned, much to the child's dismay. Schools across the nation are allowing for proactive parents to take advantage of the plans in an attempt to curb childhood obesity and to make lunch lines move faster -- nearly 1.5 million hungry kids will be kept in check during lunch time when school resumes this fall. But as always, kids will be kids, and the hackers of tomorrow are learning the tricks of the trade early-on: according to a research study, 73 percent of 8-12 year-olds are throwing out part of their lunches at least once a week, while a commendable 36 percent are bartering bazaar-style to get what they want. While programs like these have a solid premise, we envision kids making friends for more than just social reasons as middle-school cafeterias turn into fast-paced trading blocks to circumvent the system as connector children smuggle in junk food from the outside world. Or maybe we're just letting our imaginations get away with ourselves again.[Via Slashdot]
