Russian Sledges

English, College of the Holy Cross

ST. LOUIS — When Wissam Akiki was ordained as a Maronite Catholic priest Thursday night in St. Louis, he was welcomed by hundreds of supporters, including his wife and daughter.

For the first time in nearly a century, the Maronite Catholic Church in the United States ordained a married priest in a ceremony at St. Raymond's Maronite Cathedral near downtown St. Louis. Maronites are among more than a dozen Eastern Catholic church groups in the U.S. Eastern Catholics accept the authority of the pope but have many of their own rituals and liturgy.

Miniature edition of the works of Horace, 1828. 75mm (3 inches) tall.

54C-531

Houghton Library, Harvard University

Ice Shanties. Photography by Mike Rebholz.

"Mike Parker — a legendary typographer, type designer, and historian who is perhaps best known for his work giving the world Helvetica — died Sunday night."

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• You won’t BELIEVE February’s dirty, hidden past! “Before we adopted the Latin name for the second month, Old English used much more vibrant names to describe it. The most common Old English name was Solmonath, which literally means ‘mud month.’”
• You won’t BELIEVE what a steady dose of antidepressants and benzodiazepines did to this writer’s creativity!
• You won’t BELIEVE who offered these kind, pizzalicious words about our magazine! “I have every issue of The Paris Review, and I only read them when I feel like I’ve worked really hard and deserve a reward. It’s like New York pizza—hard to find a bad slice.”
• You won’t BELIEVE how far your jaw drops when you look at these eleventh-century illustrations of the Book of Revelation!
• You won’t BELIEVE how this parrot helped solve a crime in India! “Whenever Ashutosh’s name was mentioned, the parrot would start screeching.”
• You won’t BELIEVE how lame this writerly T-shirt is!

 

Modest questions about an Idaho bill allowing guns on campus.

Paul Fischer makes 3D sketches of big, complicated machines for fun. He recreated the King Tiger and other German tanks from World War II, but that only made him more ambitious. “I was looking for something bigger to draw after tanks,” says Fischer, who has been drafting since high school.

So he ordered the original blueprints of the 4-8-8-4 Big Boy, an American steam locomotive used by Union Pacific Railroad from 1941 into the 1960s, when diesel supplanted steam. He began with the main drive wheels, which were in two parts. “Even something as simple as those wheels, I always assumed that they were one piece of metal.”

Fischer reconstructed an entire Big Boy engine, first in SolidWorks 3D modeling software and then in real life, on a MakerBot Replicator 2 Desktop 3D Printer in his basement in Earleville, MD. “From what it looks like on the outside, I made it as close to the original as possible,” says Fischer. Fischer spent between 700 and 800 hours drafting and another 1,000 hours 3D printing the locomotive.

All told, Fischer spent eight months on the Big Boy. At times, it was like having a newborn. “In the middle of the night I would hear the printer stop, and I would get up and start a new build.” Fischer went through 16 rolls of MakerBot True Black PLA Filament and two 2-oz. tubes of Zap Super Glue. “I used more Super Glue than I probably should’ve,” says Fischer. He filed some parts to fit them together, but the Big Boy is black, so there was no need to paint it.

The finished engine is six feet long. “Just short enough to fit in the SUV when I put the seats on one side down,” says Fischer, who drove his model up MakerBot headquarters in Brooklyn, NY. “It was a tough journey,” says Fischer, “But when I got to the end and saw the look on Bre’s face, it made it all worth it.”

As formidable a project as Fischer undertook, Union Pacific is restoring Big Boy No. 4014, which is now on display in Pomona, CA. At 132 feet long including a tender, it will not fit in an SUV, but Union Pacific will find a way to bring it to its Cheyenne, WY, headquarters, this spring.

If you’re an experienced model maker and want to make your own Big Boy, Fischer has posted a complete set of files on Thingiverse. You should finish your Big Boy before Union Pacific restores No. 4014. Or if you’re not ready to commit, you can start with the main drive wheels, like Paul Fischer did.

(Big Boy No. 4014 photograph courtesy Union Pacific.)

Many of us are used to the U.S. or the European view of punk -- Siouxsie Sioux, the Ramones, the Sex Pistols, Nick Cave, the idea of defaming the queen -- and then Green Day, classically the moment where the punk movement gets sold out. So punk subcultures have been seen as commercialized rebellion by "first world" urban youth. To me, it was interesting to look at the scene in the context of Peru in the 1980s, where the militant messages from punk artists and musicians went beyond symbolic subversive activity into activism, in a social or political environment where the state was under direct threat. Peruvian punks had to address a contradiction: Did they want to use violence to protest social inequality and pursue social transformation?

RoR_Ninja 2307 points 1 day ago I find it interesting that most of these replies are about why women do what they do, not about the actual question you asked :) One thing I think women don't realize, is that men get WAY more than sexual satisfaction out of a relationship. We all stereotype men as being "all about sex" without realizing that sex is the primary way a man feels emotionally close to his partner. Women get emotional fulfillment from their friends, etc. Men usually ONLY get that kind of close, emotional bond with an SO. It's the ONLY source of that we have. For many men, our SO is the only person we can show our weaknesses to, the only person we can let inside our guard, inside our armor. That's why we are so desperate at times for female companionship. Imagine if an important vitamin only came in one type of fruit, and couldn't be made synthetically. You would do just about anything to get that one kind of fruit, because it's your ONLY SOURCE. It's interesting, men like to tell ourselves that we are not emotional about sex, which seems to be true, since we seem to be far more willing to have it. But this overlooks a crucial factor. We are more eager to have sex because our emotional reasons for wanting it are far STRONGER than for women, not weaker. Of course, hormones factor in a bunch too, I'm just saying that I think, at least for a good portion of men, the emotional side of it (even if they don't realize it), serves a larger role. So, to answer your question. We try again, and again, and again, and again,

Backbar, tucked behind the restaurant Journeyman in Somerville, MA, serves a roster of ambitious milk punches—co-owner and bar manager Sam Treadway guesses they’ve churned out about 100 different ones over the past two years. One ambitious hit is the BBQ Apple, in which Treadway mixes equal parts mezcal, gin, apple brandy, maple liqueur, apple cider syrup, and lemon juice, capped off with a blast of chipotle Tabasco before the boiling milk makes an appearance. “It sold like hotcakes," Treadway said, "because people heard the description and they were intrigued. ‘BBQ apple? I don't know what that would taste like.’ And then once they did, it both fit the title and was surprisingly pleasant without any singular flavor being too aggressive."

RT

Crimean War Games Wall Street Journal As to how Vladimir Putin might respond to his humiliation last week in Ukraine, the answers came in rough and rapid succession on Thursday. At least the U.S. and the European Union can't harbor any more doubts about the Russian president's intention to ... West warns Russia amid rising tensions in CrimeaBBC News The New Great Game: Why Ukraine Matters to So Many Other NationsBusinessweek Pro-Russia separatists flex muscle in Ukraine's Crimean PeninsulaWashington Post ABC Online -Bloomberg -CTV News all 2,673 news articles »

Our March Sherry Dinners are just around the corner! Here are a few updates and additional details we've put together since our last newsletter:  March 6th: Valdespino ~ $80 With seatings at 6:30, 7:00, and 7:30 An evening with Jaime Gil, export director of Valdespino! Valdespino is one of Spain's oldest and most respected sherry houses; their wines are produced within the strictest traditional standards of the solera system and represent some of the most eloquent, terroir-driven sherries made in Jerez today. For those of you who are looking for a comprehensive introduction to sherry, or a deeper understanding of the sherry making process, this will be an excellent opportunity for both! Jaime will guide us through their classic portfolio (7+ sherries) alongside a five course dinner. Vegetarian meals are available by request. March 13th: Equipo Navazos ~ $90 With seatings at 6:30, 7:00, and 7:30 We are absolutely floored to announce that our formerly titled Merry Romp of Sherry will now be slightly less of a romp and a whole lot more merry! John Kimball, who works closely with famed sherry group Equipo Navazos, will be joining us for the evening to introduce their truly fantastic and unusual wines. For those who may be unfamiliar, Equipo Navazos is a passionate group of sherry experts that seeks out exceptional barrels of sherry that have long been lost and forgotten about. They release these rare artisanal wines in limited runs of a few thousand bottles at most, sometimes as little as a few hundred. Additionally, their newest endeavor is a collaboration project with Andalucian vintner Sergi Colet in a successful attempt to blur the lines between sherry and sparkling wine. The results speak for themselves in the form of elegant sparkling wines with an unmistakably Andalucian flair. We will begin the Equipo Navazos evening with a sherry-forward, aperitif style cocktail and demonstration by Boston bartender Alex Homans, followed by a side by side comparison of two Equipo Navazos sparkling wines, and finally a selection of limited-run sherries. These tastings will run alongside a three course dinner, and as usual vegetarian meals will be available by request.

CAIRO (AP) — Egypt's military leaders have come under ridicule after the chief army engineer unveiled what he described as a "miraculous" set of devices that detect and cure AIDS, hepatitis and other viruses.

NEW BRITAIN, Conn. (AP) — A former Central Connecticut State University student who triggered a campus lockdown and massive police response by wearing a Halloween costume with a sword and BB gun has pleaded not guilty to misdemeanor charges including breach of peace.

sandandglass:

The Daily Show tries to help white people understand what it’s like to be stopped and frisked. 

eredar:

i cant even fukcing look at this without losing y fucking shit

[Photographs: J. Kenji Lopez-Alt]

Editor's Note: Welcome to the third year of The Vegan Experience! All month we're exploring the vegan lifestyle, from dining out to eating in, developing a slew of delicious recipes for vegan appetizers, snacks, and entrees along the way. For more posts in the series, check here!

A while back, I created a graph that represented the cravings I get as a vegan. At the upper end of that scale are two things: cheese and bacon. I was able to kick the cheese craving with this Vegan Nacho Sauce recipe. Today, I'm beating the bacon.*

*There's surely a euphemism in there somewhere.

Let's get one thing straight right off the bat: just as my goal with that nacho sauce was not to create something that tastes identical to a cheese sauce, but rather to create something that's delicious in its own right, my goal here is not to try and recreate bacon out of vegetables. Rather, my aim is to create something that sates my cravings, hitting the right texture and flavor notes: crispy, a little greasy, a nice balance of sweet and salty, intensely savory, and smoky.

There's this thing known in the world of human aesthetics known as the Uncanny Valley. It's a theory that states that as a figure becomes more and more human-looking, our acceptance of it becomes greater and greater, until the point that it becomes so human-like that it is almost—but not perfectly—human in appearance. At this point, many people experience a sense of revulsion when looking at it.

Now whether or not the Uncanny Valley is a real effect is up for debate, but that doesn't change its usefulness in explaining similar phenomena in other fields. Adam proposed that a similar effect occurs in the world of pizza. The same thing happens with me and faux meats; It's why a vegetable-based vegan burger patty tastes great to me, but even the best brand of veggie burger designed to taste and look like meat really turns me off.

I tried to keep it in mind when working on this recipe.

Crispin' Lover

The starting point for the recipe was obvious: mushrooms.

A couple weeks back I published a recipe for a Vegan Cream of Mushroom Soup topped with crispy shiitake chips made by frying thinly sliced shiitake caps until browned and moisture-free. The end result is simultaneously crisp and juicy; The chips burst with little bits of fat in a surprisingly bacon-like way.

For that recipe, I cooked my mushrooms in a skillet, but I found that roasting them in the oven makes it easier to produce a large volume of chips. I also made chips with portobellos, cremini (baby portobello), regular button mushrooms, and shiitake. All of them work, but the cremini produce the best crisp-and-chewy texture

Roasting temperature can affect the final outcome. At very low temperatures, you can dehydrate the mushrooms, turning them crisp with very minimal browning. Get too hot, and your mushrooms get too dark before they finish crisping. Cooking them at 350°F was a happy compromise.

I lay them out on a greased foil-lined rimmed baking sheet, flipping them once about halfway through roasting. Most home ovens are extraordinarily unreliable, and these mushrooms tend to go from just-right to burnt-to-a-crisp relatively quickly, so you have to keep a close eye on them. They should be deep brown, with just a touch of sizzling bubbles remaining when you pull them out.

Where There's Smoke

So far, the little mushroom chips have got great texture and a nice savoriness to them, but they're missing the key flavor elements of bacon: sweetness, saltiness, and smoke.

The first two are pretty easy to get: I toss the mushroom chips with salt, black pepper, a little bit of sugar (make sure to use organic sugar if you want to ensure that your sugar is vegan), and a touch of powdered garlic and paprika. For the smoke, I use a method I often employ for cold-smoking things like vegetables and cheeses indoors without filling my apartment with smoke.

You start with regular wood chunks—I'm using applewood here—and ignite them over the direct heat of a gas flame (you can also use a blowtorch if you prefer a more badass approach). It'll give off a bit of smoke, but the smoke doesn't really start until the flames die out, so your kitchen should be safe.

Next, transfer that wood chunk to a pot. Now is where you have to start working a little fast, as the wood will begin to produce lots of smoke.

Set the mushrooms (which you've conveniently loaded into a metal steamer insert before lighting your wood on fire) directly into the pot, then slam down the lid, trapping the smoke in there and let it sit. The longer you go, the smokier the shrooms will get.

I let mine smoke for about ten minutes before cracking the lid and tasting. Want them smokier? Just re-ignite that chunk and let it go for longer.

The finished smoked mushroom chips are positively addictive. I meant to save some to use as a salad topping or in a nice M.L.T.,** but wouldn't you know it, my hands and mouth colluded to eat them all before my brain even had a chance to interject!

**That's a mushroom, lettuce, and tomato sandwich, not to be confused with a mutton, lettuce, and tomato.

No worries. I made another batch and ended up with this bad boy (stay tuned for the recipe):

About the author: J. Kenji Lopez-Alt is the Chief Creative Officer of Serious Eats where he likes to explore the science of home cooking in his weekly column The Food Lab. You can follow him at @thefoodlab on Twitter, or at The Food Lab on Facebook.

Get the Recipe!

Normcore: Fashion for Those Who Realize They’re One in 7 Billion:

Letting go of the need to look distinctive.

what is anything

New submitter wassomeyob writes "In Canada, the province of Quebec has their Official Language Act of 1974 (aka Bill 22) which makes French their sole official language. It has famously been used to force business owners to modify signage to give French pre-eminance over other languages. Now, the Quebec language police seem to be extending their reach to Facebook. Eva Cooper owns Delilah in the Parc — a shop in Chelsea, Quebec near the Quebec/Ontario border. She received a letter from the language office telling her to translate everything posted on her store's Facebook page into French."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Arizona Governor Jan Brewer tweeted out a picture of her vetoing the bill...

Moments ago, I vetoed #SB1062. pic.twitter.com/gdQn0dG2vB
— Jan Brewer (@GovBrewer) February 27, 2014

Lots of positive comments in reaction to Brewer's tweet. But the haters and idiots—Joe Walsh!—are making their displeasure known in her Twitter feed.

@GovBrewer Time for you to to resign - a disgrace to America.
— Nat Johnson (@rockportbasset) February 27, 2014

Way to make this all about you. You caved to big business. RT@GovBrewer Moments ago, I vetoed #SB1062. pic.twitter.com/WxqBKJxx9l
— Joe Walsh (@WalshFreedom) February 27, 2014

@GovBrewer That's because you're a cowardly non-conservative and you just killed any chance you'll ever have at a national role in #GOP.
— Dan Gainor (@dangainor) February 27, 2014

And despite the drama and the veto... it is still perfectly legal to fire someone for being gay, lesbian, bi, or trans in Arizona and it's still perfectly legal for business owners in Arizona to refuse to serve LGBT customers. Still, victory!

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ktempest:

what is even happening here, ahahahaa

Malcolm Tucker was my favorite Doctor

The series, "Radio Operas," is the brainchild of the composers Matthew Welch, Jason Cady and Aaron Siegel, who all attended graduate school at Wesleyan University and formed the contemporary-music group Experiments in Opera. Now in its third season, the group is in residence at Abrons, located on the Lower East Side. The operas' subjects range from stamp collecting to American founding father Thomas Paine (and yes, skateboarding).

This fine instance of Saudinglish is found, together with other prime examples, in the following article: "Vous avez aimé le 'chinglish', vous allez adorer le 'saudinglish'!"

Roger Allen has transcribed and translated the Arabic on the sign as follows:

bay` al-dawaajin al-madhbuuhah

(double vowels in English for elongated vowels in Arabic).

the sale of slaughtered poultry

Perhaps Language Log readers familiar with Arabic will explain subtleties and nuances that are not immediately apparent to the non-specialist.

[Hat tip Nathan Hopson]