Jacques Pépin was born on December 18, 1935 in Bourg-en-Bresse, France, 35 miles north of Lyon.  His mother was a chef and his parents owned a restaurant, Le Pelican, where Pépin worked in the kitchen after school.  He quit school at age 13 to apprentice in a kitchen, and he learned to cook by watching and imitating the chef.  At 17, Pépin moved to Paris.  He quickly began working in some of the best restaurants of the time, training under Lucien Diat at the Plaza Athénée, then moving on to Maxim's and Fouquet's.  In 1956, he was worked as a chef for the French Navy.  A friend worked of Pépin's, who worked for France's secretary of the treasury, then led him to a position as personal chef to three heads of state, including Charles de Gaulle, from 1956 to 1958.  In 1959, Pépin came to the United States.  He planned to stay just a few years, but fate would take him down a different path; he fell in love with New York, was introduced to James Beard and Julia Child, and got a job at Le Pavillon, one of the best French restaurants of its day.  After a few years, Pépin was hired by Howard Johnson, a regular customer, to help develop the line of foods for Johnson's restaurant chain.  Pépin spent nearly 10 years as the director of research and new development for the chain, while simultaneously earning his Bachelor of Arts degree and then his Master of Arts degree in French literature at Columbia University.  Pépin quit Howard Johnson's to open a soup restaurant, La Potagerie, in 1970, which closed at the end of the decade.  In the mid-1970s, he was in charge of food operations for the newly opened World Trade Center.

http://www.biography.com/people/jacques-p%C3%A9pin-20929255#famed-chef&awesm=~oD6VlZbynEI0U3  NOTE that, in one of his cooking shows on TV, Pépin said that he would like his last meal on this earth to be bread and butter.

How to win at rock-paper-scissors by James Morgan  When players won a round, they tended to repeat their winning rock, paper or scissors more often than would be expected at random (one in three).  Losers, on the other hand, tended to switch to a different action.  And they did so in order of the name of the game: "rock-paper-scissors".  After losing with a rock, for example, a player was more likely to play paper in the next round than the "one in three" rule would predict.   Their strategy was revealed in a massive rock-paper-scissors tournament at Zhejiang University in China.  http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-27228416

The pointed long teeth — also called canines because they look a bit like those in dogs — are called eye teeth because the pair in the upper jaw lie directly below the eyes.  Originally, only the upper pair were given the name but later the pair in the lower jaw also came to be called eye teeth.  Why people seize on eye teeth as a dramatic way to indicate their longing for something is harder to get a grip on.  If only you were asking about cut one’s eye teeth or cut one’s teeth, I could respond at once by pointing out that the eye teeth are among the last of a baby’s first set of teeth to appear and so to cut them (have them emerge from the gums) implies that babyhood is in effect over.  To say that somebody has cut his eye teeth means he’s wide awake and isn’t easily fooled.  If you’re cutting your eye teeth (or just teeth) on something you’re gaining experience in a situation you’re new to.  

http://www.worldwidewords.org/qa/qa-giv3.htm

quay:  a structure built parallel to the bank of a waterway for use as a landing place

alteration of earlier key, from Middle English, from Middle French dialect (Picard) kay, probably of Celtic origin; akin to Breton kae hedge, enclosure; akin to Old English hecg hedge

first known use:  circa 1635  http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/quay

Cay, also spelled Key, is a small, low island, usually sandy, situated on a coral reef platform.  Such islands are commonly referred to as keys in Florida and parts of the Caribbean.  Sand cays are usually built on the edge of the coral platform, opposite the direction from which the prevailing winds blow.  Debris broken from the reef is swept across the platform at high tide but is prevented from washing over the edge by waves produced by the refraction and convergence of waves around the platform itself.  The accumulation of sand may at first move around but gradually will become stabilized as beach rock (sand and debris cemented at water level by precipitated calcium carbonate) is formed and the tiny island becomes vegetated.  http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/100777/cay  

NOTE that quay, cay and key are all pronounced like key. 

Brian Greene, THE HIDDEN REALITY:  Parallel Universes and the Hidden Laws of the Cosmos  book review by Anthony Campbell.  Brian Greene has already written two excellent books on physics and cosmology for non-specialists (The Elegant Universe and The Fabric of the Cosmos).  His new book is fully the equal of those and perhaps even better.  Anyone who takes an interest in science will know that there is a lot of speculation these days about the possibility that our universe is not unique.   It is a truism that one cannot get a real understanding of modern physics without resort to mathematics, but, equally, publishers know that to include equations in a book for the general public is the surest way to lose sales.  Greene's solution to this dilemma is to avoid formal equations but to describe how physicists go about using mathematics in their work and to put the gist of the equations into verbal form.  This is a difficult thing to do but Greene is adept in finding vivid metaphors and analogies to illustrate his meaning, and the text is accompanied by line diagrams and halftone illustrations that represent the ideas visually.  Read about nine different types of multiverse theory, including the quilted universe, at http://www.acampbell.org.uk/bookreviews/r/greene-3.html

The Grey Web:  Dataveillance Vision Fulfilled through the Evolving Web by

Richard Gomer, Natasa Milic-Frayling and m.c. schraefel

http://cryptome.org/2014/04/web-data-spying.pdf

QUOTES by Duke Ellington, jazz pianist, composer, and conductor (1899-1974)

"I don't need time.  What I need is a deadline."  "The artist must say it without saying it."  http://artquotes.robertgenn.com/auth_search.php?authid=843

Zebra is the medical slang for arriving at an exotic medical diagnosis when a more commonplace explanation is more likely.  It is shorthand for the aphorism coined in the late 1940s by Dr. Theodore Woodward, professor at theUniversity of Maryland School of Medicine, who instructed his medical interns:  "When you hear hoofbeats, think of horses not zebras".  Since horses are common in Maryland while zebras are relatively rare, logically one could confidently guess that an animal making hoofbeats is probably a horse.  By 1960, the aphorism was widely known in medical circles.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zebra_(medicine)

Find interesting topics such as 7 stories to read this weekend by Om Malik at http://gigaom.com  Thanks, muse reader.

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 1147  May 12, 2014  On this date in 1933, the Agricultural Adjustment Act was enacted to restrict agricultural production by paying farmers subsidies.  On this date in 1935, 1935 – Bill Wilson and Dr. Bob Smith (founders of Alcoholics Anonymous) met for the first time in Akron, Ohio, at the home of Henrietta Siberling.  On this date in 1941, Konrad Zuse presented the Z3, the world's first working programmable, fully automatic computer, in Berlin.