i enjoy that every single human’s reaction to penguin is unrestrained delight
And penguins lack large terrestrial predators, so their reaction to humans tends to be, “HELLO STRANGE GIANT PENGUINS, WHAT ARE YOU DOING? DO YOU HAVE ANY FISH?”
Tim Schafer and members of the Psychonauts development team sit down with speed-runner Stephen "SMK" Kiazyk to watch him do a run of the game and witness the different ways he's found around their painstakingly crafted work in order to complete it as fast as possible.
This is of course true in a couple of different ways (depending mostly on the meaning of "did it"), but it still seems to be a little jarring for people to see it on a billboard.
Larry Archie is an attorney in Greensboro, North Carolina, but I don't know how current this picture is (though it's been making the rounds lately). It could be out of date, because the current website instead uses the slogan, "When You Need Justice, You Need Just Us." Frankly, I like the other one better.
The Raspberry Pi is easily one of our favorite DIY devices, and today a brand new model is available. The Raspberry Pi 2 features a quad core ARMv7 running at 900mHZ (that's about a 6x speed increase) and 1GB RAM (double the Model B+'s). It's still just $35.
Modify a Panasonic RC-6025 flip clock to play Sonny and Cher's “I Got You Babe” from the movie “Groundhog Day” over and over and over when the alarm goes off, and what do you get? The Groundhog Day Alarm Clock. Read the rest
A brilliant combination of images from teen sitcom Saved by the Bell and words culled from the work of postmodern writer/activist bell hooks: Read the rest
Last week* I mentioned that we’d been on a big breakfast-for-dinner spree this winter, less out of a noble desire for inexpensive, balanced, wholesome meals and more because scrambling eggs at the last minute allows us to go all the way to 15 minutes before dinner to come up with an idea for it, which is meal-planning equivalent of the heavens opening up and glorifying all of my late-afternoon lethargy at last.
The other kick we’ve been on since the beginning of the year is passing off anything we can put in, on, or near a tortilla as dinner, leading to a steady rotation our go-to fajitas, beef tacos, black bean tacos and, in a mash-up of both the breakfast and tortilla benders, scrambled egg tacos. Many of you asked “how” I got my son to eat such foods as scrambled eggs and tacos, and while I’m tempted to take credit for it (“it’s the rainbow of local organic produce and definitely not the daily succession of pb&j sandwiches I ate while he was in the womb!”) it would be dishonest when it’s been more due to random outside influences. The grandmother of one of my son’s classmates brought in warm — warm! freshly cooked! how I long to be a kindergartener most days! — quesadillas for snack a few weeks ago, and it’s all he’s talked about since. Plus, since it fit into our all-tortillas-all-the-time meal plan, I set about finding a way to pass it off as dinner.
Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge lies in northern Utah, where the Bear River flows into the northeast arm of the Great Salt Lake. The Refuge protects the marshes found at the mouth of the Bear River, providing a critical habitat for migrating birds. More than 250 species move through this area annually by the millions to rest and feed, including ground of burrowing owls pictured here. Photo by Katie McVey, USFWS.
When a super old favorite song comes on the radio.
Baked chicken meatballs with minced celery and carrots hidden inside, topped with Franks hot sauce – with Superbowl Sunday happening this weekend, these are a must!
I topped these with my homemade blue cheese dressing and minced a little celery leaf for garnish – totally optional! Since they are appetizers and made an odd number, I calculated the n.i. per meatball but by all means, eat more than one!
We live in a culture that produces girls’ tops with narrower shoulder straps than boys’ tops, girls’ shorts that expose more leg than boys’ shorts, and then shames girls for wearing the clothes sold to them. We live in a culture that tells boys it’s okay to shed clothing in the heat in order to be more comfortable, but tells girls that there comfort is secondary to how others perceive them.
[…]
The message that we are receiving isn’t just that more ‘revealing’ clothes are wrong. It’s that our female bodies are wrong. That by having breasts and hips and legs and exposing them, we are less.
Zuppa Toscana is probably one of the richest, most hearty soups out there and is definitely one of my favorites. This creamy soup with tender potatoes and flavorful Italian sausage is modeled after the famous Zuppa Toscana from The Olive Garden restaurant, but I threw in my own personal twist. I’ve added an extra budget-friendly ingredient and lightened it up just a touch so I can slurp up a giant bowl without feeling too full.
“I love this recipe. We make it so often, it is literally taped to the cabinet next to the stove! Works perfect every time. I occasionally swap cannellini beans for the great northern if I cannot find them. Other than that, it’s so perfect!”
Pam
Easy Recipe for Zuppa Toscana
If you’ve never been to Olive Garden or had Zuppa Toscana soup anywhere else, I’d describe it as a creamy potato soup loaded with flavorful Italian sausage, kale, and bacon. The original version uses heavy cream, bacon, and a whole pound of sausage, but I decided to try to lighten it up a bit. I used half and half instead of heavy cream, subbed half the sausage for white beans, used smoked paprika for smokiness instead of bacon, and then loaded up on potatoes and kale. The result? Still totally creamy and chock full of flavor, plus a hefty dose of vegetables. Whenever I make this soup, I know I’m going to eat nothing but this for the next four days straight (it has kale, so it’s okay, right?).
Tips for adding dairy to hot soups!
Anytime you add dairy to a homemade soup like this one, there’s a chance it can separate or curdle. To avoid this, I’ve always simmered my soups (and never let it come to a boil!), but I want everyone to enjoy their Zuppa Toscana as intended, so I’ve updated the recipe to include the following information:
Use room temperature half and half, as cold dairy is more likely to curdle than room temperature dairy
Temper the half and half with some of the hot broth before adding it to the soup
These tips (room temperature half and half, tempering the dairy before adding to the pot, and only letting the soup simmer once it’s added) will go a long way in keeping your soup silky-smooth and creamy—not curdled or grainy.
Add the sausage to a large soup pot and sauté over medium heat, breaking it up into small pieces as it cooks. The sausage should contain enough fat to keep it from sticking, if not add a touch of olive oil. It’s okay if a small amount browns on the bottom of the pot.
While the sausage is cooking, dice the onion and mince the garlic. Add the onion and garlic to the pot and sauté until the onions are softened. The moisture from the onions should help dissolve any browned bits of sausage off the bottom of the pot.
Drain and rinse the can of beans. Add the beans, smoked paprika, chicken broth, and one cup water. Place a lid on the pot and let it come up to a simmer over medium heat.
While the pot is heating, cut each potato into quarters lengthwise, then slice across into thin, 1/8-inch thick slices. Add the potatoes to the pot along with the pre-chopped kale. The kale will fill the pot when it’s first added, but the heat from the liquid will wilt it within a few minutes. Stir it occasionally to help the wilting process.
Let the pot simmer over medium heat for about 15 minutes, or until the potatoes are tender.
Remove some of the hot broth from the pot, transfer it to a separate bowl, and whisk in the room temperature half and half. Now, pour the tempered half and half mixture back into the soup pot with the potatoes and kale. Bring everything to a gentle simmer (don't let it boil!).
Season with red pepper flakes and freshly cracked black pepper if desired.
*You can use hot, mild, or sweet Italian sausage for this soup. Buy loose-ground Italian sausage rather than sausage in casings.
**You can use any type of white bean you want. If you don’t like beans, you can leave them out and add more sausage or potatoes.
***I use Better Than Bouillon brand soup base to make my broth.
****If you’re not from the U.S., “half and half” is like a lighter version of light cream. Be sure to use room temperature half and half. If you don’t have half and half, you can substitute with an equal mix of room temperature whole milk and heavy cream.
Brown the sausage: Add 1/2 lb. Italian sausage to a large soup pot and sauté over medium heat, breaking it into chunks as it cooks. I didn’t use any extra oil because sausage tends to be pretty fatty. It’s okay if a little sticks to the bottom of the pot because it will dissolve in the next steps. While the sausage browns, dice one yellow onion and mince two cloves of garlic. Add the onion and garlic to the pot and continue to sauté until the onions are soft.
Simmer: Drain and rinse one 15oz. can of Great Northern beans, then add them to the pot with 1/2 tsp of smoked paprika, 3 cups of chicken broth, and 1 cup water. The smoked paprika will give that smoky hint that the bacon would have supplied. Sneaky, right? Put a lid on the pot and let it come to a simmer over medium heat.
Prep the potatoes: While the pot is heating up, wash and slice one pound of red potatoes into 1/8-inch thick slices. Slicing them thinly helps them cook faster, plus makes a great texture in the soup.
Add the veggies: Add the potatoes to the pot along with 1/2 lb. of chopped kale. The heat from the liquid will begin to wilt the kale. Give it a stir occasionally to help it come into contact with the hot soup and wilt. After a few minutes, it will have wilted down into the soup nicely. Let the soup simmer over medium heat for about 15 minutes or until the potatoes are tender.
Now, remove some of the hot broth and add it to a separate jug or bowl.
Temper the half and half: Pour 2 cups room-temperature half and half into the reserved broth, stirring gently to combine. This helps temper the dairy so it blends smoothly into the hot soup without curdling.
Simmer: Pour the tempered half and half into the pot and bring it up to a gentle simmer. DO NOT let it come to a boil at any point now!
Season to taste: I like my soup spicy (and had used mild Italian sausage), so I seasoned it with a pinch of red pepper flakes. A little freshly cracked black pepper is also nice. Depending on what type of broth you use, you may need to add a little salt (I did not add any).
Serve, and enjoy!
Absolutely deserving of all the internet hype. SO. GOOD.
make it vegetarian
The sausage in this copycat Zuppa Toscana recipe is responsible for adding a lot of flavor to this soup, so if you plan to skip the sausage to make this recipe vegetarian, you’ll need to ramp up the seasoning. I suggest adding a tablespoon or so of Italian seasoning blend to make up for the spices that are found in the Italian sausage. You may also want to add an extra can of beans to bulk up the soup a bit. Be sure to use a vegetarian broth, too!
Serving suggestions
This is truly a meal in a bowl with the starchy potatoes, protein-filled Italian sausage and beans, and veggilicious kale, but if you want something on the side, I’ve got you covered. Garlic bread would probably be my first pick, or you can do something simple like no-knead bread or soda bread. Or maybe you want to go a little lighter and add a simple side salad to really make you feel like you’re at The Olive Garden!
Storage & Reheating
If you’re lucky enough to have leftovers, you can store them in the fridge for up to 3-4 days. I like to portion it out into individual airtight containers to make reheating easier. To reheat, you can either use the microwave or the stovetop, stirring occasionally until fully heated through. Some readers have also successfully frozen this soup and said it thaws and reheats well! I’d freeze it for up to 3 months. If you do decide to freeze it, just keep in mind that dairy-based soups can sometimes separate after thawing, and potatoes can become a bit mushy.
"So its a great show for feminism, but because it fails to adress racial issues it should be ignored and made to fail"
I’m just… going to repeat the first line here, and let it sit: “So it’s a great show for feminism, but because it fails to address racial issues.”
Motherfucker, HOW can ANYTHING be “great for feminism” if it “fails to address racial issues”?
I hate to inform you of this but WOMEN. OF. COLOR. EXIST.
What kind of feminism are you practicing, exactly?
If something “fails to address racial issues” it is AUTOMATICALLY bad feminism, bad on gender issues, bad for women. You CANNOT have feminism without antiracism, because “women” are a racialized group, and women face racism.
Like, jesus christ.
I just… I’m so stunned by this assertion that something can be “great for feminism” while failing on racial issues. Great for whose feminism, exactly? For white women’s feminism? Because I’m not playing the “we’ll get to women of color EVENTUALLY” game. That’s not feminism.
That’s white supremacy.
(I mean, literally. It’s “white people come first, and THEN we’ll deal with people of color’s issues. It is LITERALLY white supremacy)
"(it just ignores them, it doesnt introduce and then kill POCs left and right - hi joss)"
Y’all out there who think it’s somehow better to IGNORE people of color than to fridge them - you realize that ERASING people of color is violence, right?
Ignoring black and brown bodies is violent because it’s the kind of discursive and aesthetic rhetoric that ALLOWS us as a nation to ignore black and brown bodies in our public policy. Because we never see black and brown people in our culture, they’re never made human for us. We’re given tacit permission to never give a shit about them, which is why we don’t give a shit when they’re *literally* murdered through economic and state-sanctioned violence.
It’s not “better” to ignore racial issues than it is to “introduce and kill POC.” Neither of them is “better.” They’re both racist, they’re both forms of white supremacist violence.
But hey, AT LEAST the actors of color in Joss Whedon’s shows are getting PAID.
"It should be ignored and made to fail."
You realize no one is actively trying to make Agent Carter fail, right?
What I’ve seen is people on tumblr saying that we MUST watch Agent Carter because it’s SUCH a good show on feminism and social justice, and so anyone who cares about those issues MUST watch it.
And at a bunch of other people are pointing out that ACTUALLY, Agent Carter isn’t all that great on feminism and social justice.
If your premise is that I should watch Agent Carter because it’s “great on feminism,” then it better be fucking great on feminism. And it’s not.
Me pointing that out isn’t me trying to “make it fail.” No one is organizing a boycott. No one is writing letters to the TV studios trying to get it off air. We’re just resisting the idea that it’s the second coming of Social Justice TV (tm).
I love that refusing to buy into the logic that a show MUST be great social justice because it has a white female protagonist means we’re attacking it, and want it to die with fire. Please.
"Because what Marvel and other producers will take away from this is not "oh female super heroes suck"? We will get another show with a dude instead."
The fact that the entertainment industry takes the failure of female-led shows as a sign that ALL female-led shows suck is not our fault. That phenomenon is a product of misogyny, not of feminist not trying hard enough to make Peggy Carter a success.
We are not responsible as individuals for magically changing an institutional problem.
And the flip-side of this is that Peggy Carter succeeding does not automatically mean more female superheroes will appear. I remember a couple years ago with Bridesmaids, everyone was like “oh, you have to see this, or we’ll never get smart female comedies again!”
And Bridesmaids did really well… and we didn’t suddenly get an influx of smart female-led, female-written comedies. Because *misogyny* is the problem.
I happen to know that Marvel did a study after the release of Avengers to see what people thought of the characters, and two highest rated characters were the Hulk and Black Widow.
Guess who HASN’T gotten a movie?
Yeah, because actually, Marvel DOESN’T always listen to the market. Marvel doesn’t always listen to the fans. Marvel doesn’t always do what would make the most money. A lot of the time, Marvel will IGNORE THE EVIDENCE, because institutional oppression is not magically solved by capitalism,
It’s not that we’re not trying hard enough to promote female characters. Misogyny is the problem.
So please stop this bullshit guilt-tripping of people because they’re not watching #SolidarityIsForWhiteAgents.
"I mean discuss it with the creaters, criticize it but watch the show. so it can get better."
Ah, yes, I will just pick up my cellular telephone and call up the creators, who are close personal friends of mine, and tell them to cast Dichen Lachman, Q’orianka Kilcher, John Cho and Derek Luke. I don’t know why I didn’t think of that before! Racism solved.
I hate to burst your adorable innocent bubble, but people asking the entertainment industry to cast more people of color has not worked out very well so far.
Also, your logic is pretty classic abusive relationship logic. “Ah, yes, this show is terrible. But you must STAY WITH IT to make it better. ” Uh, no. No, I must not? The show is not going to get better because I watch it. It is not going to get better because it has higher ratings (if anything, that’ll convince the creators they’re doing something RIGHT). If I am not enjoying a show, for whatever reason, I am not obligated to stick around and “make it better” through the power of… osmosis, or something.
On a sidenote, I was totally planning to watch Agent Carter eventually, once grad school calmed down a bit. But defenders of the show trying to guilt trip people into watching it because it’s greatest thing for feminism since Margaret Sanger, and then responding to criticisms of the show’s supposed feminism with white supremacist logic of “it’s good for WOMEN and it’ll get better on people of color EVENTUALLY” is… really turning me off the idea.
If I ever needed more proof that Solidarity is For White Women, this discussion has been it.*
There are always at least two sides to every issue, and don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. You may not like your opponents, you may not want to come to terms with them, but if you do not understand them, you will never defeat them. “Dehumanization vs. survival” is a black-and-white proposal that has no grounding in the real world.
I, who sent the tweet above, and whose blog this originates from, said my humanity is NOT fucking debatable. And this link below to my essay on anti-Blackness and “opinions” was on the original post.
My humanity is not debatable. I will not have nor entertain “multiple view points” about whether I am a human being who does not deserve the dehumanization of anti-Blackness and the ramifications of misogynoir and other intersecting oppressions.
And spare me the “if you do not understand them” line. See the archive. I understand bloody fucking well. The receipt trail on a hunnid.
I am not talking about “opponents.” You speak of the “real world” yet your point is completely grounded in theory and not the reality of oppression and the violence of oppressors. Oppression is why Black womanhood is “not real womanhood” and why Blackness is “not human.” This is not a goddamn high school debate exercise when Black bodies litter the streets, when our very citizenship and sentience itself are treated as question marks.
You think epistemic violence and casual disregard of humanity, as a debatable topic with “opponents” (which already implies a parity in structural power that does not exist; again, this is not a high school debate exercise) is “logic.” Heh. I can tell. But you are wrong. Because there is no “logical” reason why I would entertain dehumanization of Blackness as valid. Plenty of violently socialized ones, that again, my tweet rejects.
Don’t put this violent mess on my blog. If you think your response is “calm” and “rational” and “unbiased,” response, you are wrong. It is violent. Please leave me and my personal blog Gradient Lair blog alone.
Iceland is rising. Or, more precisely, the island’s “ice” part is shrinking, causing the “land” part to rebound from the Earth’s crust—a process that’s happening at a pace much faster than scientists had previously realized. In fact, its glaciers are melting so swiftly that parts of Iceland are rising as much as 1.4 inches (35mm) a year.
That’s according to research just published (paywall) by a team led by scientists from the University of Arizona. The study is the first to directly link the Earth’s accelerating uplift with global warming’s glacial thaw. As this process intensifies, the scientists warn, it risks upping the frequency of volcanic eruptions.
What’s new here isn’t the science itself, exactly. Glaciers are so heavy that they weigh down the earth that they cover. A while back, geologists discovered that where huge chunks of ice are thinning, the earth beneath them starts rebounding. And evidence suggests that higher latitudes are warming faster than the global average.
What scientists haven’t understood, though, is whether the ground’s bounce-back comes from glaciers that melted long ago—or whether this is due to recent climate change.
In Iceland, at least, global warming is the culprit, according to Richard Bennett, a UA associate professor of geosciences. He and his team figured this out by attaching GPS receivers to rocks all over Iceland, and then calculating how far the rocks traveled over time.
“What we’re observing is a climatically induced change in the Earth’s surface,” he says.
Even more worryingly, this change is happening way faster than previous research suggested. If melting continues at its current pace, by around 2025, some parts of Iceland will be rising at a rate of 15.7 inches a year.
There’s a literal downside to all of this—and it’s a big one. The thinning of the glaciers reduces the pressure on the rocks beneath, as Kathleen Compton, a UA geosciences doctoral candidate who led the research, told Time. the danger for Iceland is that high heat content at lower pressure creates conditions more likely to melt the rising mantle rocks—feeding more magma to volcano systems.
Bennett points out that the last time its glaciers got skimpy—about 12,000 years ago—Iceland’s volcanic activity leapt thirtyfold in some parts of the island.
Eyjafjallajökull’s 2010 eruption choked the atmosphere with so much volcanic ash that its plume grounded tens of thousands of global commercial airline flights each day.(IATA)
That’s grim news not just for Icelanders, but for everyone. In 2010, the eruption of Eyjafjallajökull cost the global economy an estimated $5 billion. And while Bárðarbunga’s rumblings in August 2014 proved less eventful, it’s still erupting, and has set off another of the region’s volcanoes. More ominously still, the eruption of Laki in the 1780s killed a quarter of Iceland’s population, wiped out 23,000 Brits, set off famine in Egypt, and may have helped spark the French Revolution.
A rescued Owl is ready to be returned to the wild after receiving expert care at New Zealand’s Wellington Zoo. Photo Credit: Wellington Zoo The young Morepork Owl was brought to the zoo in early December and cared for in…
A brilliant combination of images from teen sitcom Saved by the Bell and words culled from the work of postmodern writer/activist bell hooks: Read the rest
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