On a recent trip to the USA I was struck by the absence of lamb on restaurant menus. This PDF on meat consumption trends underscores my point. The amount of lamb eaten in the USA is vanishingly small. Given the mixed nationalities who migrated west in the 1800 and 1900s this seems curious. Lamb is still popular in the UK, even if we traditionally have it with mint sauce. The French and Italians both treat lamb well and the eastern Mediterranean countries all cook lamb regularly. It is even a staple in Irish stew. All of these nationalities contributed to the country that is now the USA, yet lamb has gone missing.
After a quick serendipitous chat with Thomas Vander Wal, it seems lamb is commonly available in upstate New York and in California, but beef is the main elsewhere. So what happened that beef, chicken and even pork and turkey dominate so much in the USA. Lamb is a lovely meat.
cultural differences: September 2007 Archives
I've been designing Nature Network over the past year or so and through it we've created social software for scientists. This is a different type of social software to the more general platforms like Facebook or MySpace or Vox. We have designed it to fit the needs of scientists, it has captured some of the professional aspects of scientific life.
I'm keen to find more examples of this, I spoke to some people at foocamp and discovered ModelMayhem and SchoolLoop. Both of these are good examples of the kind of vertical market social software I'm after. Each of them presents reasonable (fair) barriers to entry and has a language of its own, mirroring the existing phraseology used within each subject area.
ModelMayem is a site for fashion models, makeup artists and photographers. You need to show work and be approved to properly join the site. SchoolLoop is aimed a teachers and parents of pupils in schools in the USA. You need to have a pupil at a school in the USA. Sermo and LinkedIn also spring to mind, LinkedIn less so, as it is quite generic. Sermo is for registered doctors in the USA
Can you tell me of other examples you found on the internet, thanks.
