Life imitates Star Trek: according to the BBC Science News, the U.S. Army has been field-testing a portable translator in the Balkans. Army chaplains in Croatia used laptops that could "hear" spoken Croatian and translate it into spoken English, via a speech synthesizer. Of course at this stage only about fifty percent of what was said was understood by the computer, since complex grammar and idiomatic expressions don't often sit well with machine-based translation algorithms. But if you're the sort of person who grew up dreaming of Universal Translators, this is pretty cool stuff. Ensign Hoshi Sato would be proud.

And in the Famous People Jogging Down Memorial Drive Department, while driving home from work my wife and I saw Chris Schleslinger, my favorite chef in the whole world and owner of the fabulous East Coast Grill, running along the Charles River yesterday. Or at least I think it was Chris. In any case, I'm glad we yielded! The East Coast Grill, located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, is home to the now famous/infamous "Hell Night", where diners eagerly pay to have their taste buds scorched by some of the hottest chile-spiked cuisine known to man. Even when it's not apocalytpically spicy, the food is always amazing. Chris was a huge influence on my own cooking style, which emphasizes heat, tropical flavors, and a lot of grilled meat and seafood. I treat my copy of his 1995 cookbook, Salsas, Sambals, Chutneys & Chowchows, like a holy relic, albeit a dog-eared, food-spattered, and coming-apart-at-the-binding one. But a cookbook isn't truly beloved unless it's seen plenty of action.