Don't Trouble Soaking Grains for Time Savings or Taste 2014

Don't Trouble Soaking Grains for Time Savings or Taste 2014

Typical cooking wisdom tells us to soak grains like barley or steel-minimize oats overnight to make them prepare dinner more rapidly and presumably produce higher results. Critical Eats' exams, nevertheless, counsel you possibly can just skip that step and cook dinner them straight from dry.

Daniel Gritzer cooked side-by-side grains that were unsoaked, ones that were soaked overnight, and ones soaked overnight with salt. His tests included whole-grain barley, pearl barley, and steel-cut oatmeal. He concludes:

Well, mainly that soaking grains isn't necessarily going to speed things up, and salting doesn't seem to make a (salt-)lick of difference. And when soaking does help, as in the case of pearled barley, it doesn't always look pretty. If you don't care about appearances and are desperate to knock 15 minutes off the time it takes to cook polished grain, go for it. I, for one, will just accept my grains as they are and wait patiently for them to do their thing.

So if you forget the overnight soak, don't worry. You can still cook those grains with little detriment in terms of time or flavor. However, one reason you might want to consider soaking grains is to possibly make them more digestible. Your call.

Do I Have to Soak My Grains? | Severe Eats

Posted by: http://gosspot.com/

Writted by: totor

View the Original article

Genesis Media Raises $6M For Ads That Interrupt But (Hopefully) Don’t Annoy You

Ad company Genesis Media is announcing that it has raised $6 million in Series B funding.

When I discussed the funding with CEO Mark Yackanich, he described the company as “a data-driven decisioning platform that intercepts users with media” — which even he admitted was a bit of a mouthful. Put more simply, online publishers use the company’s ContentUnlock product to show ads (usually video ads) to their readers on a timed, targeted basis.

And yes, you have to watch those ads if you want to continue reading the article (or otherwise access the content). Yackanich pitched it as an alternative type of pay wall, where the reader doesn’t actually have to pay. He also said Genesis tries to “contextualize” the ad so that it’s clear that once you watch it, you won’t have to see another one for a while (the gap period may be “seven articles or 24 hours or 48 hours or one week”, depending on the publisher and the reader).

The real advantage to ContentUnlock, Yackanich said, is its recognition that “different consumers have different values to different publishers.” In other words, the type and number of ads will vary from reader to reader. For example, he suggested that a “loyal and engaged reader” who visits the site directly probably shouldn’t see an ad initially, while someone who comes to an article after from a link on Twitter probably won’t stick around very long, so publishers can pursue “more aggressive monetization.”

Genesis says that its publishers include American Media, Bonnier, USA Today Sports, and The Smithsonian. Yackanich added that the business model has evolved: “Our publisher partners are dragging us very happily — and this was always the plan — into more of a platform model.” In other words, instead of selling the ads, in some cases Genesis is just providing the technology to publishers, and it’s used by their sales teams.

The new funding was led by Blue Chip Venture Capital, with participation from Crown Predator Holdings. Including credit (and not just the $6 million in equity), the round totaled $10 million. Yackanich said.

Don't Let Bad Grades Limit Your Earning Potential

Some of the best-paying fields of study—like science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM)—are also the stingiest when it comes to grading in college. If you get too discouraged by B's versus A's, you might miss out on a profitable profession.

Interestingly, women seem to be more averse to bad grades than men are, according to a couple of studies noted by the Washington Post:

Claudia Goldin, an economics professor at Harvard, has been examining why so few women major in her field . The majority of new college grads are female, yet women receive only 29 percent of bachelor's degrees in economics each year.

Goldin looked at how grades awarded in an introductory economics class affected the chance that a student would ultimately major in the subject. She found that the likelihood a woman would major in economics dropped steadily as her grade fell: Women who received a B in Econ 101, for example, were about half as likely as women who received A's to stick with the discipline. The same discouragement gradient didn't exist for men. Of Econ 101 students, men who received A's were about equally as likely as men who received B's to concentrate in the dismal science.

Being sensitive to low grades, however, could affect an individual of any gender. The takeaway for everyone is to focus less on your grades and more on what you really want to do with your life. Got a B-? Just imagine your professor has used the staircase method of grading papers pictured above, and keep on studying.

Women should embrace the B's in college to make more later | The Washington Post

Photos by ragesoss.

View the Original article

Don't Drink Water on an Airplane Unless It Came from a Bottle

S

When you want to quench your thirst on an airplane, make sure the water you get came from a bottle. As the Huffington Post notes, there's a strong likelihood you'll get some pretty bad stuff inside if it was obtained from the tap.

"Do not EVER drink water on an aircraft that did not come from a bottle. Don't even TOUCH IT. The reason being the ports to purge lavatory sh*t and refill the aircraft with potable water are within feet from each other and sometimes serviced all at once by the same guy." —@gruntman

*While the exact water refill process probably varies by airline, the Wall Street Journal ran a test of tap water from 14 different flights in 2002 that found bacteria levels "tens, sometimes hundreds of times above U.S. government limits."

Yuck.

16 Alarming Airline Secrets That Will Change How You Feel About Flying | Huffington Post

Photo by withGod (Shutterstock).

View the Original article

Why Business Plans Don’t Work For Entrepreneurs

Every great entrepreneur is, at heart, a man of action. In his mind, he sees himself to be like Superman or Iron Man, making him pretty blind to your own faults. That’s absolutely necessary. The fact is being an entrepreneur means you need to be a bit crazy. But nobody wants to do business with a crazy person so understandably entrepreneurs tone down their inner superhero to fit in.

Business plans are in place to give investors a sense of security. Hence, they try to test the person they are funding. Creating a business plan is just a test – a flight simulation, if you will. You need to spend some time flying inside the simulator, but don’t get caught up.

Every entrepreneur knows that things will go wrong in real life, and no business plan can save you then. What will save you is your ability to bounce back, adapt and fight. What will save you is being a real-life Iron Man.

Recommended Reading: What It Takes To Call Yourself A Real Entrepreneur

But why exactly do these business plans fail? And if you are to make one, what’s the best business plan possible? Let’s have a look.

The map is not the territory

Reading a map and following a business plan are quite similar. Looking at any map, you see the overall direction in which you need to go. The map however won’t show you the people on the street, the traffic lights you need to stop at, or the distractions you need to avoid along the way

It can only show you the different corners you need to take en route to your destination. Sure you need the map – for about 10 seconds. After that, it’s game on, and the actual enviroment will guide you.

Simulation Versus Real Life

What if there’s a crowd somewhere in between you and your destination? You’ll need to jump, dodge, run or slow down, depending on what’s actually in front of you. At some point, you’ll even need to forget the map. Will you stick with the plan and slowly work your way through the mob, or divert and look for a faster alternate route?

This is where you can see the difference between real entrepreneurs and wannabes. And there’s no right or wrong choice either. You’ll have to make that choice on the fly, considering the specific variables presented to you.

Read Also: Freelancers Vs Entrepreneurs – The Jedi Edition

Fighting the tide

Going against the tide is how businesses make money. However, making their mark is where the real reward for entrepreneurs is.

Most of the time, that doesn’t go down well with the big VC firms as their priorities are protecting their assets and making a decent yearly profit. Still, if you are an entrepreneur your concern is offering the coolest product possible to as many people as possible. So how do you cope? You ride your own wave.

How to ride your own wave

Sure, you need to catch a good disruptive wave (a rising industry). But that’s as far as your business plan takes you. A quick glance at the map, a sight of a future rising wave and in you go like a brilliant surfer. Don’t second guess yourself either as you lose time.

I’m not saying you should invest heavily in this fashion. Start small, and see if it works. If you invest small, and start on multiple waves, you won’t drown when things go wrong. And eventually you’re bound to hit the Jackpot and make up for all the losses. So when you see a wave that keeps on rising, you focus on that entirely and disregard everything else.

That’s your one and only business plan. The overall goal of finding the right wave, creating the best possible product and bringing it to as many people as possible. All the rest are distractions and unecessary complications.

Read Also: Failure Is Feedback – How 5 Billionaires Had To Fail To Succeed

Just Do It

No real superhero entrepreneur wants to hear about complex forecasts of customer volume according to age groups, and how an increase of 2.5 percent for the marketing budget 3 years from now will convert more young people into buyers. That’s for people concerned about profit.

So if you can, start by not putting yourself through the ordeal of having to construct such estimations. In the words of Sir Richard Branson: “Screw It, Let’s Do It!”

If it’s that simple, why doesn’t everybody do it? Well, it could be the multitude of insecurities and negative beliefs, which I’ll simply sum up as “fear of starting”. That is another reason not everybody is able to create a successful business.

Read Also: How To Reinvent The World In 3 Simple Steps

You need to Adapt To Win

Each superhero has their own flaws and weaknesses. Sometimes, the superhero even runs away. He also asks for help. He doesn’t just blindly rely on his superpowers. The lesson here is he doesn’t always stick with the original “business plan” of going in and using his powers to win the fight.

Adaptability is what makes a business work. Pivoting in crucial moments. Anticipating the future and adjusting your course accordingly make for a successful business.

So don’t believe the hype. Trust in Sir Branson. Forget your business plan. Business should be a fun sport. Yes, it can be a contact sport, but will a few bruises even matter when you know you’ll be smiling in the end?

View the Original article