USDA hardiness zones are guides for farmers and gardeners who needs to know what plant would or would not survive in their local conditions. Comparing the hardiness zone maps between 1996 and 2006 is one of the best visual guides of climate change I’ve seen.
Bestiality was punishable by death once upon a time in Europe and in colonial America. Deformed piglets were often assumed to be monstrous human/porcine hybrids. Perceived resemblance to the “prodigies” could be damning, adding insult to the considerable injury of being burned at the
stake.
Hedge funds: A remarkably efficient way for the 0.1% to fleece the 1 percent. “84% of the investment gains of the entire hedge fund industry went to the managers, and only 16% to the investors.”
This is the future of design, I think. Electronics have been getting lighter, thinner, more multi-functional for quite a while now, and at a certain point, it becomes dehumanizing to be hunched over a piece of plastic and glass just…swyping. The next challenge is to take all this amazing technology and integrate it into our physical environment again, and allow us the joy of interacting with technology with more than our index finger.
Bon Appetit food lover’s cleanse. I don’t really know what cleanse really mean in this context. But it seems like a good collection of lighter recipes to un-do the post-holiday guilt.
Otters chasing a butterfly are incredibly adorable.
Don’t let veggies languish in the crisper. Roast/saute/prep them as soon as you get them home, and they become a convenience food for the rest of the week.
Remember the formula 6:3:3:13to make amazing no-knead bread: Six cups of water, 3 tablespoons of salt, 3 tablespoons of yeast and 13 cups of flour.
The three Ds of internet arguing: Derail, deflect and dismiss. The article itself is actually about something quite different, but I found this particular observation genius.
I type this as a big fan of the Tintin series by Herge as a kid. The palpable sense of adventure around every corner was just captivating. Tintin, ’tis true, didn’t really make much sense as a character. But that doesn’t matter…he is the ultimate Mary Jane, a blank slate that allowed readers to escape from our mundane lives by slotting into his existence.
This almost inevitable adaptation of Tintin attempts to provide the adventure by throwing 3D shenanigans at you at a non-stop pace. I feel churlish for complaining…it was well-made and tightly paced. But having those outlandish cartoon plots rendered ‘real’ just made them ridiculous. And the charm of Herge’s art is lost.
What worries me more about Tintin than the film itself is the trends it represent: an arid monoculture in modern popular film. It’s safe (an impeccably executed adaptation of a popular work with built-in name recognition), has a lot of potential profitability (Herge wrote a lot of books) and is in 3D (gives the punters a reason to get off their ass and come to the cinema…$15.50 please.) If these trends continue, I might find myself at the cinema even less often than now, which is about every other month.
The arid monoculture of modern popular film: “Every single one of the 10 top-grossing films of 2011 was an installment in a franchise.” I feel like Tintin is a perfect example of this flight to impeccably executed adaptation with sequel potential.
Farhad Manjoo say you need to learn how to program. Really? Who knows. But if you feel like you do, sign up for Code Year and get weekly coding lessons for neophytes in your inbox.
Cary Tennis’s very insightful advice for someone who found she lost her identity along with her career: “So your life task now is to regain your social life, to locate, in this temporary wasteland, people among whom you can again exist vividly. You need people who can actually see who you are.”
I had no idea who Cesaria Evora was until she died and the remembrances made their rounds. But then I realized that they used to play her all the time at the “tapas” bar I bartended at in Taipei. It’s kind of weird to discover somebody’s music just as they’ve passed, and yet have such a strongly nostalgic reaction to it at the same time. TL;DR: The reason is sad, but I’m glad I found her.
Things that are very hard but very important to accept #2: Being an active investor is kind of like playing in the world series of poker as an amateur…the pros will get you almost every time.
“if Jesus had been born just a few hundred years earlier, today’s most common Christian symbol would be missing its cross-beam.” Crucifixion is actually the kinder, gentler alternative to death by impalement.
http://www.jammersreviews.com: I can’t believe I didn’t know about this site before. A treasure trove of reviews of all the Star Trek franchise series episode by episode, plus Battlestar Galactica too. Done by one guy!
The case for an euroskeptic left, outlined by the only reason I visit the Daily Telegraph: Ambrose Evans-Pritchard. “The question for today’s Left is whether it is in their interests to keep apologising [for the EU's disastrous center-right policies]. Comrades across Europe, come over to the eurosceptic side. You have only your euro chains to lose.” Advice from the other side is usually concern-trolling. But dammit, he’s kind of right.
The half-life of the internet seems to be shrinking at an exponential rate. Wasn’t it just a couple of weeks ago that the “shit girls say” video came out? Now “Shit ___ say” is a huge meme. Best example: Shit White girls say to Black girls. Watching a black girl playing a white girl doing the weird head-bob-hand-wave thing to Nicki Minaj’s Superbass (which in turn is a white girl’s idea of how black girls dance rather than how Nicki Minaj actually moves) is just…thank you internet.
The estimated costs of keeping a German shepherd over a 10-year life span ($16,400) is roughly equivalent to a brand-new Volkswagen Jetta ($15,365).
Twilight as written by Raymond Carver: “Bella stars as the alcoholic barmaid with daddy issues that Edward, a classic abuser, exploits. When Bella’s old friend Jacob comes to visit and is shocked by her bruises, she thinks about leaving him, but instead hits the gin bottle. Hard.”
To the list of all the things that are making you fat, add…artificial lighting. Seriously, scientists…seriously?
Never trust the po-po. OK, that sounds paranoid and slightly ridiculous coming from a nerdy Asian chick. But listen to this tape of how Worcester police officers browbeat and lie to a teen into confessing she smothered her son and see if you don’t come to the same conclusion.
Marmalade the Nigella way: Boil the citrus whole first. Then you can chop it whole, cutting down on tiresome prepping. Perfect because I bought a huge bag of pink grapefruit from Koreana plaza for $2 and haven’t touched it yet.
95%: The percentage of addicted returning Vietnam Vets who kicked their heroine habit when they came home. Compare with 90% relapse rates with domestic rehab programs. The takeaway is environmental cues are a powerful factor in maintaining habits.
Inhaling sulfur hexaflouride gas temporarily makes your voice deep like Darth Vader just like inhaling helium gas makes it high and squeaky! Demonstrated to hilarious effect by Kelly Ripa and Neil Patrick Harris.
Today I learned the difference between diastatic and non-diastatic malt. Diastatic malts contains enzymes that converts starch into sugars. Bakers put it in bread dough to give the yeast some food. There’s no active enzyme in non-diastatic malt. It’s just used as a sweetener.
Quote of the day “Friends, I shall ask you to be as quiet as possible. I don’t know whether you fully understand that I have just been shot; but it takes more than that to kill a Bull Moose.” — Theodore Roosevelt, Oct. 1912, giving a speech after he was shot in the chest.
