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 This machine makes pizza from fresh ingredients—mixing the dough, adding sauce and toppings, and cooking it using all kinds of weird thingamajigs and infrared rays. In just three minutes, as you can see in the video.
The pizza machine has all the Italian chefs up in arms—and I can’t blame them. After all, can it make a Bacon Cheese Pizza Burger? It can’t.
Created by Claudio Torghele with some technology developed at the University of Bologna, it does it all. Mixes the flour and water into dough, makes the base, adds the tomato sauce, and finally puts the toppings on top. The whole process takes three minutes, thanks to the use of infrared rays. You can imagine the results. According to Torghele:
This is not just a vending machine, it’s a mini-pizzeria. It has windows where you can watch the pizza-making process. Kids, including my own, love it: when the machine is working, there’s always a crowd.
According to me:
It’s a disgrace.
Oh well, at least one of the toppings is bacon. [Reuters]
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 Getting a good pizza from a decent pizzeria is pricey, and the El Cheapo Express frozen discs are often indistinguishable from their cardboard backing. Learn how to make your own without inheriting a wood-fired oven.
Photo by Foodie.
Writing for business blog Mainstreet, Allison hit the streets to find someone to teach her how to make a cheap and easy homemade pizza. Andrew, a food studies graduate student, was happy to oblige. In addition to sharing a recipe for the dough, he talks technique. While pizza places and ultra high-end home kitchens might have ovens built for pizza cooking, Andrew insists that the basic tools available in most kitchens are more than adequate to whip up a delicious pizza. The key to good pizza is heat, and lots of it.
He has a cast iron griddle heating on the stovetop, and has turned the broiler on high with a rack four inches below the heating element. He cuts off a racquet-ball sized portion of the dough, and uses his fingers to stretch it, careful not to break the dough.
He puts the dough on the griddle, drizzles olive oil, thinly sliced red onions, grated Parmesan and green olives on top, and pops it under the broiler. He watches it until the dough rises and browns, and the toppings melt and bubble, about 4 minutes.
For more adventures in homemade pizza, check out how to make no-knead pizza dough and The Simple Dollar’s guide to another simple home made pizza recipe. If you have your own tips, tricks, or tasty pizza recipes to share, sound off in the comments below.
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Getting a good pizza from a decent pizzeria is pricey, and the El Cheapo Express frozen discs are often indistinguishable from their cardboard backing. Learn how to make your own without inheriting a wood-fired oven.
Photo by Foodie.
Writing for business blog Mainstreet, Allison hit the streets to find someone to teach her how to make a cheap and easy homemade pizza. Andrew, a food studies graduate student, was happy to oblige. In addition to sharing a recipe for the dough, he talks technique. While pizza places and ultra high-end home kitchens might have ovens built for pizza cooking, Andrew insists that the basic tools available in most kitchens are more than adequate to whip up a delicious pizza. The key to good pizza is heat, and lots of it.
He has a cast iron griddle heating on the stovetop, and has turned the broiler on high with a rack four inches below the heating element. He cuts off a racquet-ball sized portion of the dough, and uses his fingers to stretch it, careful not to break the dough.
He puts the dough on the griddle, drizzles olive oil, thinly sliced red onions, grated Parmesan and green olives on top, and pops it under the broiler. He watches it until the dough rises and browns, and the toppings melt and bubble, about 4 minutes.
For more adventures in homemade pizza, check out how to make no-knead pizza dough and The Simple Dollar’s guide to another simple home made pizza recipe. If you have your own tips, tricks, or tasty pizza recipes to share, sound off in the comments below.
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 Lawn Darts were a game from a simpler, more naive time. Sure, they could embed themselves in your little sister’s head just as easily as the lawn, but they were fun. Now they’re back.
They’re back thanks to the unfortunately named Jarts In Your Heart web site, which sells the banned items thanks to a little bit of legal gymnastics. You see, since lawn darts (or “Jarts” as they’re known here) transform so easily from an innocent backyard game into deadly weapon depending on who’s holding them, Jarts In Your Heart has to sell the plastic fins and metal tips separately. Sad.
Jarts in the Heart isn’t bitter about the game’s fate in the slightest, of course:
“These Jarts are NOT toys. They should be kept out of reach from children. They should be treated as you would a bow and arrow. These have and will puncture a person. If you have the IQ of a monkey please don’t buy lawn darts. I will not sell to anyone under 18. I do not have many sets left so when they’re gone they’re gone [...] Jarts in Your Heart will not be held liable for any death or injury caused by these Jarts. By purchasing from Jarts in your heart you agree to these terms. Again, I can not stress this enough. If you’re an idiot just don’t buy Jarts, stick to playing Horseshoes, Baggo or that ladder ball game.”
The total package is $65. The snarky, snotty product description above is free. Let’s be safe out there. [Jarts In Your Heart via CrunchGear]
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Lawn Darts were a game from a simpler, more naive time. Sure, they could embed themselves in your little sister’s head just as easily as the lawn, but they were fun. Now they’re back.
They’re back thanks to the unfortunately named Jarts In Your Heart web site, which sells the banned items thanks to a little bit of legal gymnastics. You see, since lawn darts (or “Jarts” as they’re known here) transform so easily from an innocent backyard game into deadly weapon depending on who’s holding them, Jarts In Your Heart has to sell the plastic fins and metal tips separately. Sad.
Jarts in the Heart isn’t bitter about the game’s fate in the slightest, of course:
“These Jarts are NOT toys. They should be kept out of reach from children. They should be treated as you would a bow and arrow. These have and will puncture a person. If you have the IQ of a monkey please don’t buy lawn darts. I will not sell to anyone under 18. I do not have many sets left so when they’re gone they’re gone [...] Jarts in Your Heart will not be held liable for any death or injury caused by these Jarts. By purchasing from Jarts in your heart you agree to these terms. Again, I can not stress this enough. If you’re an idiot just don’t buy Jarts, stick to playing Horseshoes, Baggo or that ladder ball game.”
The total package is $65. The snarky, snotty product description above is free. Let’s be safe out there. [Jarts In Your Heart via CrunchGear]
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And you thought nothing could beat the Jesus Switch as the worst Wrongmodo ever, didn’t you? I said: DIDN’T YOU? Well, Jason and I did, but the—absolutely hilarious—Polish Penis Train has proved us oh-so-wrong. [DRB]
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- Top 10 Tiny & Awesome Windows Utilities (Windows)
It’s the little things that make a Windows system great-like utilities that use less than 10MB of memory to make your life easier. Here are 10 apps that pack a lot of greatness into very little space.
- Killer Typography Tools and Free Font Downloads
Whether you’re putting together a resume, flyer, or web page, everyone needs to find and compare fonts some time. Here are some tools that can help you find the perfect font.
- Magnifique Customizes Your OS X Theme (Mac)
Not keen on Leopard’s default theme, or just prefer to ditch the status quo for something more your style? Free application Mangifique quickly and easily swaps custom themes in OS X.
- Better Gmail for Google Chrome (Windows)
Better Gmail for Google Chrome is a compilation of user scripts designed to enhance your Gmail experience-and to make it easy, we’ve tested and bundled them together in one easy download.
- Synergy-Plus Controls Multiple Systems from a Single Keyboard & Mouse (Windows)
We took a strong liking to controlling multiple computers with a single keyboard and mouse nearly two years ago, and the concept’s still cool, but the software hasn’t updated. Synergy-Plus keeps the multi-control party going.
- Boxee Adds Pandora, PBS, New API (and Fixes Hulu) (WIndows/Mac/Linux)
Open-source media center Boxee debuted a new Alpha release tonight, adding support for Pandora music streaming, PBS video feeds, and changes that open it up to more multimedia goodness (oh, and fix Hulu streaming, too).
- Outlook 2007 Update Boosts Performance and Responsiveness (Windows)
Microsoft is offering a “cumulative update” for Outlook 2007 users running SP1 that its developers promise will improve hard disk usage, startup and shutdown times, and help those with smaller, cached mailbox storage.
- Display Your Desktop Icons in List View (Windows)
DesktopListView is an really tiny application that activates a list view of small icons on your destop, giving you more room for an intriguing desktop or custom-sized windows.
- Vuze Converts BitTorrent Downloads to Device-Friendly Formats (Windows/Mac/Linux)
Vuze-one of the most popular BitTorrent clients around-has just added a killer feature that allows you to easily transcode any download so its playable on your iPhone, iPod, Apple TV, PS3, and Xbox 360.
- Close’n Forget Removes Browser Tracks of the Site You’re On (Firefox)
Close’n Forget, one of the runners-up for Mozilla’s Best Firefox 3 Extensions, has updated to, well, actually work more often, erasing any site’s cookie/history/AwesomeBar evidence from Firefox with one button click.
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 Flickr co-founder Caterina Fake has revealed her new startup, Hunch.
The goal of the service is to help people make decisions by using a series of questions (a decision tree) that can help weigh options and ultimately give suggestions for how to proceed.
Hunch is in early beta and not publicly available, but thanks to Caterina we’ve had the opportunity to try it out. Our take: Hunch is extremely useful for decision-making, a fact that could make it highly profitable as a provider of product purchase decisions. Couple that with its Flickr pedigree, and Hunch looks to be a good bet.
How Hunch Works
Hunch already provides a plethora of questions it can help answer, ranging from whether or not someone should work for a startup to which acne medication will work best. It seems best suited for large or difficult decisions – you don’t need Hunch to pick out your breakfast, although there is a decision tree for that question as well. I decided to try it out for a decision I have already made – moving to San Francisco.
The concept and use of Hunch is simple – start with general questions and drill down into details related to a decision. I was given questions on what I wanted in dining, climate, geography, and entertainment – all relevant to my decision to move. When I had answered all of my questions (about 10), I was presented with four choices, #2 being San Francisco: this form of web-assisted decision-making is impossible with existing tools like Google searches. Trying it out with other questions shows that its suggestions tend to be on-the-mark and useful, and with more tweaking, it will only get better.
Wiki-Like Editing and User Reviews
Hunch works well at suggestions and decision-making, but this is not what struck me about Hunch. What I found interesting were the actions someone could take once a suggestion was made. Like a wiki, anyone can edit a result in Hunch and add URLs for reading more information. In addition, it also has a user review section, where users can comment and write down the pros and cons about the suggestion.
Hunch not only works as a decision-making tool, it also works as a wiki and a review website of practically everything. I found the pros and cons helpful. I could see myself not only coming to Hunch for decisions, but for reading user reviews about a city, a person, or a product.
Business Model: Conversion Rates Could Rival Google
Hunch’s current business model is based on referrals and commission fees – if a specific book is the answer to a question, it will offer the ability to buy it on Amazon. If it’s a person or place, it links to Wikipedia to learn more about the suggestion.
This idea draws easy comparisons to Google search ads. It’s well known that people who click ads next to Google results are more inclined to make a purchase than those looking at ads elsewhere on the web: after all, searching for “15-inch laptop under $1000″ probably means you’re in the market for one. If Hunch can provide the very best recommendation at the end of a purchase decision, its conversion rates could be the same or better than Google’s. That means big money, IF Hunch can get the recommendations right.
Reviews: Flickr, Google, Wikipedia
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