Abetrujillo

Amazon's been ramping up its efforts in the education space since 2013, when it acquired TenMarks. The ed-tech startup helps teachers and parents create easy-to-digest curriculums for young students, which up until today were all about math. But now,...

For the past two years, Amanda and Cameron Marshall have been raising their three young children in Croatia’s capital city, Zagreb, after moving from California. In today’s Motherhood Around the World interview, Amanda shares their favorite holiday tradition, the food that makes her do a double take and Croatians’ answer to anything that’s ailing…

On moving abroad: When Cameron got an Olmsted Foundation scholarship — which immerses American military officers in a foreign culture and language — we were asked to list all the places in the world where we’d like to live for a few years.… Read more

The post 16 Surprising Things About Parenting in Croatia appeared first on A Cup of Jo.

We've held up the Tile as the best Bluetooth-connected fob to keep track of your stuff since its second, refined version launched in 2015, and more recent versions have gotten better and smaller. The latest additions to the lineup released today, Til...

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Hulu's collection of classic sitcoms already includes Seinfeld and The Golden Girls. Now, its library is getting even bigger with the addition of several shows from ABC's TGIF comedy line-up. The likes of Perfect Strangers, Full House, and Family Mat...

If you come over to my house for dinner, I'll most likely serve carnitas tacos. Why? The combination of tender pork, crunchy fresh toppings, and soft warm tortillas make for a fun, satisfying meal that each person can customize to their exact mood and preferences. Traditional carnitas always hit the spot, but, come summer, I like to switch things up and make a vibrant peach salsa.

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Since April 2016 Amazon has been selling this lid-kit. I’ve used it to make hassle-free (no-“burping”) kimchi. Once fermenting is complete, these lids can be reused to make new batches and replaced by standard lids. (The latter can be air-sealed with the Food-Saver Wide-Mouth Jar Sealer reviewed on Cool Tools)

The kit contains:

• Three lids utilizing a “waterless airlock valve technology [that] lets carbon escape. But also makes sure zero oxygen can enter.” Low-profile lids that “are a fraction of the size [i.e., height] of those clunky three-piece airlocks. This means we can store our jars almost anywhere a mason jar can fit.” This is a strong selling point to me. I put them in a kitchen cabinet, not on a countertop.
• A “date setter [built into the rim] keeps track [of] when your ferment started so you always know when it’s almost complete.”
• “An “integrated easy release tab” that allows a thumb-assist when unscrewing the lid.
• An air extractor pump “to suck out the oxygen during the later stages of your ferments.” (E.G., after opening the lid for taste testing or eating partial contents.)
• “A 30-page getting started guide, Fermenting recipe e-cookbook and access to our ask the experts’ forum”

It’s rated 4.8 stars on 657 Amazon reviews. I suggest not pumping out too much air after partially consuming the contents, lest it becomes a struggle to unscrew the lid after it’s been in the fridge. I suggest leaving a full inch of headspace and employing a weight to keep the contents from rising too much during fermentation, to keep brine from escaping through the valve. (But it only forms a little pool that can be rinsed away if it does.)

A few Amazon reviewers complained that the pump pooped out on them and that there was no plain and convenient way to get a new one. However, as of April 19, 2017, the Pump for fermenter jar alone can be bought on Amazon.

-- Roger Knights

Easy Fermenter Wide Mouth Lid Kit

Available from Amazon

I am not a good shoe tie-er. For years I have wanted to get Velcro shoes, but my wife won’t let me because she says they’re for five-year-olds or for eighty-five year olds and I am not one of those. About a year ago a friend of mine told me about these elastic shoelaces.

Lock Laces are like bungee cords. You lace them up one but you don’t have to tie them. They have a little lock and you lock them in and they are as tight as your regular shoelaces. I haven’t tied my shoelaces in about a year and my wife doesn’t yell at me or walk ten feet ahead of me because they kind of look like normal shoelaces.

This review is from our podcast interview with AJ. Listen to the episode here.

-- AJ Jacobs

Lock Laces

Available from Amazon

We have previously bemoaned what hipster restaurants have been doing to food, but there are so many terrible things restaurants have been doing with their presentation that it cannot possibly be limited to just one post.

Over on Bored Panda, you can find a list of over 180 absurd restaurant serving ideas and each one is more groanworthy than the next.

Even the ones that look delicious still look impossible to eat.

So see the full list of absurd food presentations over at the link.

If you love Alton Brown's scientific and thorough way of demystifying cooking, you're probably thrilled that the show that brought him international prominence, Good Eats, is coming back in a new format.

In this, his new teaser video he posted on social media, he takes you on what may be the spookiest teaser video since the "The Ring" preview.

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The first men to land on the moon used a Saturn V rocket. Now that rocket is a LEGO set, with 1969 pieces (because the Apollo 11 mission was in 1969). It comes with a lunar orbiter, a lunar lander, and three astronaut minifigs. The rocket can separate into three stages, just like the original. The finished model is over three feet tall! To get a sense of how big that is, check out the size of the minifigs.

Since you probably don't have that much room to stand it up, it comes with three stands so you can display it horizontally. -via Kottke

Click here to go see the bonus panel!

Hovertext:
I think he'll be a freer spirit if he knows he can deal death with every motion.

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This is like... the week of weird parenting comics.

This chip of plastic is a pan scraper. It’s one of my favorite kitchen tools. See how the corner radii are different sizes? That’s so you can scrape burnt food from the curved sloping edges of different kinds of pots and pans. I’ve used it on cast iron and non-stick cookware, and it hasn’t scratched anything yet. It’s infinitely better than using a bristle brush to rub away barnacled scrambled eggs. I no longer have to resort to using my fingernail or a plastic sandwich bag tie to scrape away the most stubborn bits of carbonized food from a skillet. Why did I wait so long to get one?

-- Mark Frauenfelder

Durable Polycarbonate Pan Scrapers, 2-Pack

Available from Amazon

A proud mama ferret repeatedly grabs her human's hand with her mouth and drags it over to a box filled with her newly-born babies.

A group of ferrets is called a "business", which means this mama ferret is says, "Hey you with the opposable thumbs, come check out my awesome business!"

via

In recent years, there haven’t been too many crazy new haircuts. What do we have, really? The man bun? The Bieber? The “whatever that thing on Shingy‘s head is”?

There’s no way around it: we live in the dark ages of crazy haircuts.

It wasn’t always like this. Not too long ago we were living in a Golden Age of Crazy Haircuts, aka 1980’s and 1990’s. Back then, people went for it. Sure, we might have put a dent in the Ozone layer but at least everyone looked cool.

Today we’re looking back at some of the best crazy hairstyles from this era. These are so out there, they make a quintessentially crazy hairstyle like a mullet or a wave look conservative by comparison. When you look over this gallery you’ll feel that 2017 is quite pathetic, indeed.

1. The flat top mullet, with no-burns. Classic.

2. The “Was that lightning?”

3. The German Flag

4. The only haircut praying mantises want to mate with.

5. The “How am I going to explain this to your grandmother?”

6. The Beast

7. The Double Doorknocker

8. The Paint Brush

9. The “It’s medicinal.”

10. The Family Plan

The post 80’s And 90’s Hairstyles We Want To Come Back appeared first on AwkwardFamilyPhotos.com.

In the past decade, coconut oil has been touted as the holy grail of healthy cooking. But last week the ingredient was brought down a notch by the American Heart Association's latest report. According to a recent review of existing data on saturated fat, the Dietary Fats and Cardiovascular Disease advisory found that lower intake of dietary saturated fats — including coconut oil — is associated with a reduced risk of heart disease.

So, is coconut oil actually bad for you? What do other nutritionists say? And what can you do as the consumer? Let's break it all down.

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Now that was easy, wasn't it? Too bad such a small effort is too much for so many. Just a simple affirmation of what you already think can go the distance to make someone else feel good. And look at the last panel- it will do you good, too! This is the latest from Lunarbaboon.

There are plenty of other comics at Lunarbaboon that you don't see here, so if you enjoy them, you might want to bookmark the site. Or you could check out artist Chris Grady's book, Lunarbaboon: The Daily Life of Parenthood.