We’d just had a very tough fight with a slippery Kobold Wizard. In an attempt to catch the Kobold from his perch at the top of a cliff, our Gnome Wizard teleported up to where the Kobold had been. Sadly, the Kobold escaped. Worse, the Gnome realized that he’d used his last teleport to get up…
Joel KohToo soon...
sorry, but han solo is yesterday’s hunk. pack it in, old-timer
it’s almost as good as the real thing!! how would lincoln stack up to kennedy? how would mccain do against taft??
why are we wasting time with lousy new candidates when we could just recast our favorites
Joel KohYup.
I am so glad that IKEA did not change its mind about sponsoring pastor Lawrence Khong’s magic show despite the objections of the LGBT community. I am also pleased that the pastor has NOT said anything. If he did, there would never be an end to the fracas….
I looked at the protests about the show which basically centred on Mr Khong’s uncompromising public attitude towards those of a different sexual orientation. Like many, I wondered what his magic show had to do with his views, unless he chooses to use it as a platform to “convert’’ others to his point of view through some magical brainwashing technique. Or maybe his magic show is so bad that IKEA should be ashamed to support it.
I guess it was not so much Mr Khong’s show as the fact that it was a Swedish store that was involved. Sheesh! The Swedes support Lawrence Khong? How can? Shouldn’t it be more “inclusive’’ and embrace diversity? Aiyoh…this company from a wonderfully advanced country doing this?! How can?
Actually, the LGBT lobby shot itself in the foot by talking about diversity. IKEA made a pointed reference to its support of the Wild Rice production of Public Enemy, helmed by a prominent gay man, Mr Ivan Heng. It looks as though IKEA had been rather even-handed in its choice of activities and organisations to support.
It is normal for consumers to put pressure on corporations because of their perceived failings. Boycotting those who use child labour to produce their products, for example. Here, there was even an abortive attempt to not buy palm oil during the height of the haze to hurt unscrupulous plantation owners who use slash-and-burn techniques to clear land in Indonesia. Whether companies succumb depend on how much they value their reputation and whether they can withstand the effects of a boycott.
In this case, IKEA incorporated Mr Khong’s magic show as part of its loyalty programme of discounted rates for members. That, it seems, is enough to rile the LGBT activists who show themselves to be as intolerant of other people’s views as they say other people are of theirs. Does the community intend to hound Mr Khong’s magic show wherever he goes – and will corporate sponsors pull back because they don’t want any heat from the vocal lobby? Will the lobby claim victory then, never mind that it acquires an image of being strident and, hmmm, intolerant?
There’s another point which the community should consider. If the boot was on the other foot and the pro-traditional family lobby comes out in force to do the same, what would it do for its cause of getting the community recognized as part of the mainstream? What if, for example, the members of the lobby decide to boycott all the organisations who sponsor the annual Pink Dot? Would the LGBT lobby then start denouncing them as intolerant homophobes? Even worse, what if they start petitioning the civil service not to hire gays, because their employment runs contrary to the State’s pro-traditional family stance? In the case of IKEA, what if the pro-Lawrence Khong supporters and traditional family groups decide to boycott the store BECAUSE it sponsors Mr Heng’s play or pulls Mr Khong’s show?
There is some wisdom in the official advice to not to take things too far or to push too hard. The Pink Dot organisers have been superb at keeping its event low-profile; they can’t help it if more and more people converge on Hong Lim Park. Still, the ever-growing crowd has already prompted a backlash with the Wear White campaign last year.
Never mind the LGBT numbers here, no one will say that they are in the majority. Yet there are many people who emphatise with the LGBT community and wish the members well. They are not anti-gay and go about their business quietly. Bullying tactics, however, will make them sit up and take sides. Might it not be better to let things happen naturally than start a culture war?
This is not to say that the LGBT lobby should shut up and sit down. It should not tolerate discriminatory acts against one of its members, such as employment termination because of sexual orientation. It should raise an outcry if, say, a homophobic play is put up for audiences – although I think the censors would get to it first. It will find many supporters if it works for the well-being of its members rather than push its agenda on others who might not be ready for it.
Bullying won’t work – or there will be bullying back. How is this good for anyone?
Joel KohNot for Arachnophobes.
Which has a greater gravitational pull on me: the Sun, or spiders? Granted, the Sun is much bigger, but it is also much further away, and as I learned in high school physics, the gravitational force is proportional to the square of the distance.
—Marina Fleming
Note: This is a spider-heavy article. I can be a little anxious about spiders myself, so my research for this article involved a lot of opening PDFs while squinting and leaning back from the screen. If you're a serious arachnophobe, you might want to skip this one.
In the literal sense, this question is totally reasonable, although it would be easy to rephrase it to be completely incoherent.
The gravitational pull from a single spider, no matter how heavy, will never beat out the Sun. The goliath bird-eating spider[1]Wikipedia helpfully notes that despite its name, it "only rarely preys on birds, with the exception of young birds." weighs as much as a large apple.[2]This is correct whether I mean the fruit or the iPhone 6+; the spider weighs about as much as each. Even if, God forbid, you were as close as possible to one of them, the pull from the Sun would still be 50 million times stronger.
What about all the spiders in the world?
There's a well-known factoid that claims you're always within a few feet of a spider. Is this true? Arachnologist[3]Spiders, not ancient pottery.[4]Unless the ancient pottery is full of spiders. Chris Buddle wrote a good article on this question; as you might expect, it's not literally true. Spiders don't live in the water,[5]With the exception of Argyroneta aquatica so you can get away from them by swimming, and there aren't as many spiders in buildings as in fields and forests. But if you're anywhere near the outdoors, even in the Arctic tundra, there are probably spiders within a few feet of you.
Regardless of whether the factoid is precisely true or not, there are an awful lot of spiders out there. Exactly how many is hard to say, but we can do some rough estimation. A 2009 study actually measured the total mass of spiders in sample areas in Brazil. They found one-digit numbers of milligrams of spider[6]SI unit: the "AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA", abbreviated "AAAAAA". per square meter of forest floor.[7]That's dry mass; you have to divide by a number around 0.3 to get the live weight. If we guess that about 10% of the world's land area hosts this density of spiders, and there are none anywhere else, we come up with 200 million kilograms worldwide.[8]One survey of fields and pastures in New Zealand and England tended to find two-digit numbers of spiders per square meter. If they each weigh about a milligram, and we assume once again that about 10% of Earth's land supports that density of spiders, that gives a total spider biomass of 100 million to a billion kilograms. That agrees with our first estimate, at least.
Even if our numbers are off wildly, it's enough to answer Marina's question. If we assume the spiders are distributed evenly across the surface of the Earth, we can use Newton's shell theorem to determine their collective gravitational pull on objects outside the Earth. If you do that math, you find that the Sun's pull is stronger by 13 orders of magnitude.
Now, this calculation makes some assumptions that aren't true. Spider distributions are discrete, not continuous,[9]Spiders are quantized. and some areas have more spiders than others. What if there happen to be a lot of spiders near you?
In 2009, the Back River Wastewater Treatment Plant found themselves dealing with what they called an "extreme spider situation." An estimated 80 million orb-weaving spiders had colonized the plant, covering every surface with heavy sheets of web.[10]Which was in turn covered in heavy sheets of spider. The whole thing is detailed in a fascinating and horrifying article published by the Entomological Society of America.[12]The conclusion of the article contains this breathtaking piece of prose:
Our recommendations for amelioration included the following general points:
1) On-site personnel should be reassured that the spiders are harmless and the facility's immense shroud of silk should be presented in a positive light as a record-breaking natural history wonder.
What was the total force of gravity from all those spiders? First we need their mass; according to a paper titled Sexual Cannibalism in Orb-Weaving Spiders: An Economic Model, it's about 20 grams for males and several times that for females.[11]Not to be confused with Trade-off between pre- and postcopulatory sexual cannibalism in a wolf spider, which is a different but equally real paper. So even if you were standing next to the Black River Wastewater Treatment Plant in 2009, the pull of all the spiders inside would still be only 1/50,000,000th that of the Sun.
No matter which way you look at it, the bottom line is that we live our lives surrounded by tiny spiders on a world completely dominated by a gigantic star.
Hey, at least it's not the other way around.
Joel KohOnward Singapore
It’s over. Seven days of mourning and shared sorrow. Who would have thought that half a million people would wait for hours, whether day or night, whatever the weather, to bid goodbye to someone? Who have thought we would queue along the roadside in the rain to watch his cortege go by, that we would yell LKY, LKY and strew petals on the road as he went on his last journey?
Singaporeans did it. Not because they were sheep or suffering from mass hysteria, but because of a deep, abiding attachment to the man. They probably can’t even explain it, not by dissecting his policies in detail or by calculating the pros and cons of his leadership. To many, he was, in the words of his younger son, an “orang besar’’. Bigger than anyone they ever knew, who commanded every stage he was on, whether here or abroad.
This was LKY.
And so thousands carried umbrellas and wore ponchos just to watch the cortege whizz by. Others were glued to their television sets, picking out the dignitaries in the University Cultural Centre sitting silence for Mr Lee Kuan Yew’s last entrance before an audience.
I was one of those in front of the TV watching the State funeral along with my mother. The pictures were grainy. The heavens had opened up after a week of humid weather, for Singapore’s chief gardener. The Lee family walked in the rain. The lines of uniformed citizens were drenched to the bone. I wondered about whether musical instruments used by the SAF band would be destroyed in the rain. I wondered if children would catch cold. I tried to identify the roads. Anything, anything. To stop myself from wallowing in the mood of the occasion. I didn’t succeed.
Who could? You watch fervently, hoping that the State flag wouldn’t slip off the casket, that the coffin bearers wouldn’t, gasp!, lose their grip and you wondered if Mr Chiam See Tong was all right in his wheelchair. You try to keep count of the gun salute and wish you could see the plane formation in the grey sky. You make out the lines on the Prime Minister’s face and saw his puffy eyes. All of us were trying to take in every moment of this time in history. We didn’t want to miss anything.
As the Prime Minister took to the stage to deliver the first of 10 eulogies, my mother hoped out loud that he would hold it together. For a while, we thought he would succeed without a hitch. He was in “political speech mode’’, that is, until he turned personal. He had to pause after he said he had tried to spend a quiet moment meditating alongside his father’s casket before the ceremony. I don’t know about you, but I cried. Not for the man in the casket, but for his son, who was so determined to carry out his national role of Prime Minister, that he never once said “Papa’’. (By the way, this is not an indictment.)
Every day over the week, I learnt something new about our first Prime Minister as people started trotting out anecdotes about their interactions with him. Today was no different. Former MP Sidek Saniff told of how Mr Lee advised him to borrow an overcoat from Dr Ahmad Mattar and a pair of boots from Mr Goh Chok Tong when he had asked him if he was equipped for a trip to China. Mr Sidek was also the most emotional, bidding farewell three times as he turned to the casket.
Long-time grassroots leader Leong Chun Loong recalled how he got testy when the firing of firecrackers was mistimed during a Chinese New Year event. You can’t run a country if you couldn’t get such a little thing right…(How like the man, I thought. The perfectionist. But isn’t it true that most of us try to run before we have even learnt to walk? We want to do the “big stuff” when we can’t even do the small things…)
Both President Tony Tan and Emeritus Senior Minister Goh Chok Tong told of Mr Lee’s great respect for office. When he was no more Prime Minister, he would always defer to Mr Goh and Dr Tan, like making sure that it was he who visited the President and not the other way round. Never mind that it was Dr Tan who wanted to pay him a visit while he was ill.
Mr Goh also said something that will probably set some quarters buzzing: that Mr Lee “never muzzled’’ anyone. He was a man of great intellect who put forth his views forcefully, but he was open to being converted if the arguments convinced him. Former Cabinet minister S Dhanabalan said much the same. Mr Dhanabalan seemed unsettled by descriptions of Mr Lee as a “pragmatist’’. He was an idealist too – or he would have simply courted the Chinese majority instead of pursuing the ideal of a multi-racial society, he said.
I think all of us listened especially closely to the last speaker, Mr Lee Hsien Yang, who delivered the eulogy on behalf of the family. We know now what it was like to have a famous father. How Papa was seldom around and how they always took their family holidays nearby, like in Cameron Highlands. And how he found out about his parents’ secret wedding at Stratford-upon-Avon in England only upon reading his father’s memoirs. There were little vignettes of family life – like how they left birthdays “unmarked’’ until recently and how Papa and Mama were delighted to have another grandchild while they were in their 70s. Frankly, he sounded like a son who missed his father even before he died.
In my mother’s living room, I recited the pledge, hand on heart, and sang the national anthem. The State funeral had ended, and I left for my own home.
I could see the streets come back to life, slowly. People started emerging from their homes to do whatever they usually do on Sundays. My mother’s neighbor left his flat at the same time as I did. We wondered if our younger and not-so-young leaders were of the same calibre as Mr Lee…How? It was a sombre ride in the lift.
As I walked back to my home, I realized that I had not bumped into any cyclist or handphone-staring pedestrian on the pavement – because there weren’t any.
I also noticed something in the air. The rain was over. The air was fresh. One era has ended. A new one has begun.
Majulah Singapura.
I was flipping through youtube links yesterday and came across this interview with Malcolm X on CBC’s Front Page Challenge. It can be rare to see a major American figure like this on Canadian television! What a powerful and precise speaker, just hit play and try to stop watching.
I got a letter last week. Its tone was awkward and amusing to me, so I posted a picture of it with a little jokey, Twitter-shaped observation:
I think the Democrats just threatened me: pic.twitter.com/wGvYInosk5
— Jonathan Coulton (@jonathancoulton) October 30, 2014
At first I got a couple replies from my immediate followers and the people I know, most of whom seemed to understand and share my take on it: that the letter was a little weird, ham fisted, and kind of dumb. It had the tone of a mobster threat (“Nice house. It’d be a shame if anything happened to it.”) , but it was almost charmingly nonspecific, such that it didn’t really threaten anything at all (“…we will be interested to hear why not.”).
Within about 24 hours it had been retweeted enough times (currently 1800 retweets and 1000 favorites) that it found its way outside my most immediate circle of friends and followers, at which point things got weird. It started bouncing around a few right wing echo chambers, and it got picked up by some right wing blogs. It found its way into the feeds of people who had no idea who I am, what my politics are, or what my sense of humor is. And as it lost context, it started to take on all sorts of meanings depending on who was reading it. Some people took me literally and assumed that I actually felt threatened. Some of those people agreed that it was a real threat, while others thought I was being thin-skinned. Some people thought I was wrong or lying about it having come from the Democrats, and a few found it suspicious that I cropped the photo the way I did. Some people thought it was a Republican ploy. Some thought it sounded like classic union thuggery, others thought it sounded just like something Karl Rove would do.
I found it fascinating, and I have some thoughts on it. But first let me set the record straight on a couple of points. Here’s the whole letter:
I framed the original photo the way I did because I didn’t want to include my home address. I took the picture with my phone and didn’t feel like trying to figure out how to blur or cover a portion of it, so I just framed the important part. But you can see “Paid for by the New York State Democratic Committee” on the bottom. Also, (and this is part of what makes it kind of creepy) it is not on any letterhead, and it isn’t signed by anyone in particular.
Some facts about me: I usually vote for Democrats, because their politics usually align with mine. I’m not that political a person, but I do have some strong opinions, mostly about social issues, and usually I find myself agreeing with Democrats on those issues. I voted for Obama twice. I don’t consider myself to be particularly well-informed about all aspects of every political race, but I do my best to pay attention, to read and think, and to vote based on my understanding of issues and not an “us vs. them” mentality. I don’t fully understand economics or geopolitics, and I’m suspicious of anyone who claims that they do. I try to stay on top of local politics, but I have a hard time finding it interesting enough to do so, and as a result, I don’t always vote in local elections. I feel guilty about that. But sometimes I feel so uninformed that it feels wrong to vote based on a gut feeling based on how a candidate’s name looks to me when I see it for the first time in the voting booth.
I thought this letter was charmingly inept, which is why I tweeted about it. I didn’t actually feel threatened. I have since learned that this letter is likely based on some research that shows this kind of “vote shaming” is an effective way to get people to vote. The NY Times says this research was done by the creepily named Analyst Institute, an organization founded by “A.F.L.-C.I.O. officials and liberal allies.” It seems that both sides are trying it out in various ways.
So, wow. First, it seems clear to me that the reason this tweet of mine traveled so far so fast is that it’s pretty easy to fit it into whatever narrative you have in your head. We like evidence that seems to support what we already believe, and we like to retweet that evidence so everyone can see that we’ve been right all along. See, the Democrats/Republicans are sneaky/inept! This is what depresses me about politics and about social media – it’s very hard to have any kind of real discussion about this stuff. We’ve all carefully constructed our own customized echo chambers. We think what we think.
Second, context is everything, especially when you’re talking about 140 characters of mostly irony and sarcasm. And on Twitter, context is not something you can control. This tweet made total sense when it was in my echo chamber. Once it got outside that circle, it got re-interpreted in all sorts of ways. Since this began, there’s been a little tickle in the back of my skull reminding me that I will never be able to correct the many misunderstandings of my politics, my sense of humor, my threshold for feeling threatened, the spelling of my name, etc. After all, I can only reliably reach the people inside my immediate circle of followers, I can’t make anything go this wide on purpose. It’s not like this post is going to go viral. My tweet became a kind of a zombie broadcast, and I’ll never catch up to it now. Ultimately, and in this particular case, who cares, but I shudder to think about how I might feel right now if this had been something important.
Third, oh my gosh, there are some people out there who are really different from me. I think we forget this is true a lot of the time, because it’s so easy to build a mirrored sphere of people and ideas around ourselves – you look around and everyone you listen to seems to agree with you, so you must be right. I got this dizzy feeling of cognitive dissonance when someone would talk about how hopefully someday we’d “round up” all the progressives, or how this was typical “Democratic thuggery,” or the idea that this wasn’t the worst of it because the Democrats are rigging the voting machines, and anyway they only win elections because they lie and cheat. I think all that stuff about Republicans! Well not really, but the temptation is there to buy into those ideas, and those are definitely the kinds of narratives that are bouncing around in my own personal chamber. And just to be clear, I’m pretty solidly against the idea of “rounding up” anyone, regardless of their politics. (Although maybe those people were joking and I didn’t get it. I sure hope so.)
Even though I’m a little weirded out by this tweet having become a bit of a talking point for the right, I do think it’s a strange and creepy way to go about getting the vote out. And it is an actual letter I got, so there’s that. It’s a real thing that exists in the world, so sorry NY State Democrats, but this one’s on you. It didn’t become a talking point because I tweeted it, it became a talking point because it makes you look tone deaf, and it’s a little embarrassing. I get the intent behind it, and yes of course we should all vote, but I certainly think they could have been a little more artful about it, you know, with the words and stuff. Then again, who knows, maybe this will get the right people to the polls, and maybe this will be a net gain for the Democrats. I will never know.
That said, I’m not going to vote against the Democrats just because of this letter, as surprisingly many have suggested. My politics aren’t going to change just because some people in some office made a bad decision and then hit print. I happen to believe that both sides have the capacity to be pretty shady when it comes to winning elections. Indeed, I’m not all that surprised to hear that one side or the other is trying to get certain people to vote or not to vote, because I know the tiniest bit about how campaigns work. And I truly don’t think it’s that big a deal – if you’ve been paying attention at all, you can probably think of five worse examples of corruption in politics than this letter.
So I’m still going to make my voting decisions based on my evaluation of which issues matter, and which candidates are best, which is what we should all be doing. Revenge voting doesn’t make any kind of sense. Neither does falling for these narratives, these mythologies that turn the messy/beautiful democratic process into a story of good guys and bad guys. It’s just that kind of group think that makes us check out of the very difficult but essential process of thinking critically about what candidates say and do, and about how our government behaves. We all have to work hard at looking past the comfortably familiar images in that mirrored sphere, and make our own decisions about what’s right and true. And this goes for both the idiot right wing nut jobs AND the spineless nanny state liberal elites.
You should pay attention. You should vote. Most of all, you should think for yourself.
I CANNOT WAIT for the comment thread on this one…
Joel KohI *need* that backpack.
[Photographs: Donna Currie]
A picnic sounds like an easy-breezy sort of affair—just put some food in a basket, go to a local park, and enjoy a perfect meal outdoors. But packing for a picnic isn't quite as easy as making lunch to eat at home, because, let's face it: how many times have you gotten up from the table because you forgot a serving spoon or you dropped a fork and needed clean one? Or after one bite of the sandwich, you decided that you wanted a pickle or some chips? Or you forgot the mustard?
Unless you're picnicking in your own back yard, once you arrive at your destination, what you have is all you've got. That lovely bottle of wine won't get opened if you don't have a corkscrew.
A little strategic planning and some key gadgets can minimize the annoyances and make the picnic seem effortless.
A picnic basket doesn't need to be wicker. Or basket-shaped. There are a variety of basket styles available to fit your lifestyle and your picnic needs. Are you packing for two or four? Are you traveling by foot, bike, or car? Is this date-night supper, or a quick lunch in the park across from the office?
Red Envelope sells a backpack designed especially for picnicking. It comes complete with dishes, wine glasses, metal utensils, napkins, cutting board, serrated knife, corkscrew, and tiny salt and pepper shakers. Insulated storage for food is in a separate compartment, and detachable wine storage and a picnic blanket complete the set—and you can get the backpack monogrammed, as well. The backpack basket is great if you're doing a little hiking to your picnic space, whether that hiking is urban or back-country trails. Or, perhaps for a short bike ride. But since space (and weight) is limited to what makes sense to carry on your back, they're probably best for wine, cheese, and nibbles, or for a few sandwiches and a few sides, rather than a huge spread.
Wicker baskets evoke that old-timey picnic vibe. From Bambeco, the picnic basket for two includes bamboo plates and utensils, embroidered napkins, wine glasses, and a cutting board. Since the interior is roomy, this sort of basket is well suited for a larger and more varied array of picnic goods.
When it comes to food storage, we probably all know the mantra that heat rises and cold sinks, so for best preservation of chilled foods, it makes some sense to have the ice packs on top (if you're using them, but more on that in a bit). But there's another logic involved. Put the foods you'll want first on top, and leave dessert on the bottom. You'll conserve more chill by having the basket open for less time.
While freezer packs are useful, I found that using a freezable sports bottle filled with water worked just as well, and I had that extra supply of cold water at the picnic as the ice melted. I didn't fill the bottle completely before freezing, since I didn't want it to burst in the freezer, and it was the last thing to go into the basket when it was packed. They definitely cold enough for a quick trip to a nearby park for lunch.
Another option for chilling that serves double duty is the Rapid Ice Cooler from Vacu Vin. Actually, there are a variety of these sleeves, designed to fit cans and bottles to chill them and keep them cool. You can wrap them around your containers before putting them in the basket (which has the added benefit of cushioning them, if you happen to be bringing glass) or you can lay the coolers on top of the basket for travel and let people insulate their beverages as they're drinking. You can also use them to keep foods chilled, if you have them packed in containers of the right size.
One thing to keep in mind is that your chosen picnic spot might not be close to running water, so if you drop your serving spoon in the grass, maybe you'd rather grab a clean spoon instead of trying clean the dirty one.
In fact, I suggest bringing along plenty of extra utensils. They don't take much space, and for serving spoons and random cutlery, you don't need to go all-out with high-end equipment. A visit to a local thrift store will probably supply you with a big handful of unmatched and interesting flatware and serving spoons for cheap. When the picnic is over, wash them, put them in a plastic bag, and store them in the basket so you're ready to go next time.
Speaking of cutlery, bring along a few extra knives, as well. You don't need your best equipment, but I'd suggest something better than a butter knife. A knife that comes with its own sheath is a good idea, like the red utility knife from Good Cook or the Oni knife from Dreamfarm that's designed for cutting with one edge and easy spreading with the other. A divot in the handle has a tiny sharp edge for cutting—like when you're wrestling with one of those chip bags that just doesn't want to open.
A few small cutting boards can come in handy, too. Remember, you might not have a good way to rinse your used boards, so it might be handier to bring a few extras. While I love small flexible cutting mats, you might be working on a bumpy surface at the picnic area, so a solid board might be a better choice. The "small plates" boards from J.K. Adams are small enough to fit into your basket and the designs are pretty enough to use them as serving boards for your cheese—you did think about serving that cheese, right?
For the wine and cheese basket, don't forget the toothpicks! I packed cheese, olives, and some pickled items, none of which really required plates or utensils to nibble, but toothpicks are certainly more civilized than poking in the olive container with your fingers. Buy a little toothpick dispenser and keep it in the picnic basket.
While the picnic baskets I mentioned came with their own napkins, some extras in a dispenser that will keep them from blowing away is a good idea. After the picnic, leave it in the basket or use it for back yard dining. The Simply Roll napkin holder from OXO is a good choice.
Many of the baskets on the market come in 2-person and 4-person versions. Even if you think your picnics will only involve two people, the 4-person version might be a good choice, since you'll get extra plates and utensils that can be used for serving, and you won't need to pack up as many extras.
Recently, I conducted a completely unscientific poll and found that there were three distinct picnic menus. First is the comfort food version with cold fried chicken and potato salad. Second is the wine and cheese picnic. Third is sandwiches. My personal preference is probably based on my early infatuation with Aunt Bea's fried chicken packed in a wicker basket for Sheriff Andy. But I would never turn down wine, cheese, and nibbles.
I have a tendency to put way too much food on the table for dinner at home, but that's fine because leftovers are easy to pack and store. At a picnic, that's not necessarily the case. No matter how well chilled your food was when it arrived, it's probably going to be edging towards warm if it's been out of the basket for serving. Are you really going to pack that food up and put it in the refrigerator to serve another day? Some things, yes. The potato salad, probably not.
OXO's LockTop containers come in a variety of sizes, and the 4-ounce container was perfect for a single serving of cole slaw—no need to dish it out—just pop the top and eat. If you think someone will want a second serving, just bring extras in those small containers and keep them chilly in the basket.
A larger LockTop container was great for the chicken and a divided container kept vegetables and olives from getting to know each other too well.
While it's perfectly fine to pick up olives, hummus, and pickled vegetables from the olive bar at the grocery store, don't be tempted to use those containers for your picnic. I've had those flimsy plastic containers open and spill into my grocery bag, and that's not something you want to deal with at a picnic.
Besides, if you're packing munchies for your wine and cheese basket, you'll probably want a small amount of many things, rather than a vat of hummus and a quart of cornichons. And think about how fun it will be to unpack and nibble on a whole array of small portions, while you slice your cheese and sip your wine.
I used an assortment of containers, including colorful Veggie Savers from Mastrad for the fruit I brought for dessert. To go with the wine-and-cheese basket, star fruit in a bright purple container looked great.
Remember that ice water in a sports bottle? I suggest bringing extra water or other beverages besides the wine. On a hot, sunny day, you might find yourself wanting to chug a whole lot of cold drinks. The PureFizz soda maker lets you bring your own carbonated water, flavored or not, and the Bormioli Rocco bottles are a beautiful way to carry your homemade lemonade or iced tea.
How about extra glasses? Both of the picnic baskets I used, and others that I looked at, included wine glasses, and you can refill them with lemonade or iced tea, but why not pack a couple extra glasses? Duralex glasses are durable enough to travel, and you can use them for serving that fruit salad you brought, just in case it's too messy to put on flat plates. If you're going to be sitting on the ground rather than at a picnic table, you might find that lightweight wine glasses are a little unstable on uneven ground, where the tumblers are less likely to, well... tumble over.
For sandwich packing, there are two options. The pressed sandwich would be fine wrapped in foil and stashed in a plastic bag to thwart leakage, but the Compleat FoodSkin offers another option. It stretches and molds around the food inside, keeping it snug.
For the make-your-own sandwich, sturdy plastic sandwich containers house bread nicely—one sandwich at a time—and meats, cheeses, and condiments could be stored separately, to avoid the dreaded soggy sandwich issue.
Then we have condiments. Depending on what you're serving, you might want mustard, ketchup, mayonnaise, hot sauce, ranch dressing, oil and vinegar dressing, but you're only going to use small amounts. Rather than bringing a whole bottle, consider repacking, and then consider easy serving.
The travel bottle from Swissmar is designed to hold 3 ounces of liquid, and it's great for ketchup, mustard, or mayonnaise on a picnic. For dressings and sauces that are more pourable, the small salad dressing shaker from OXO holds 8 ounces and has a pour spout.
If you want hot coffee with your meal, forget about carrying it in your picnic basket. Use an insulated bottle or travel mug and carry it separately. The same can be said about that hot German potato salad or the baked beans that you want to serve with your sandwiches, which you can store separately in insulated containers in bowl shapes.
If you'll be sitting on the ground, don't forget a blanket. The blue checked blanket (from Target; not online) folds and zips to form a pillow with a carrying handle, and if you forgot one last thing, you can shove it into the zipped blanket for easy carrying.
Any blanket will do, really, but keep in mind that the ground might be damp. Bring a thick blanket, one with a waterproof underside (like the blanket that came with the backpack) or a combination of a waterproof ground cover (a plastic tablecloth or drop cloth are fine) along with your own festive blanket.
Don't forget to bring chips or crackers to go with the cheese, salsa and dips. They're lightweight, but bulky. It would be ideal if you could fit absolutely everything into the basket ... but really, why stress? It's not like luggage. You won't get charged extra for bringing another bag. Any sturdy tote bag will do, since we're not worried about insulation.
While chips come in their own handy storage container to bring to the picnic, think about how you'll take them home without spillage. Bring bag clips. Not only do they seal your bags, but you can clip one to the corner of your napkin to keep it from floating away on a breeze.
Speaking of snacking, if you're bringing a little friend along who won't be partaking in the main event, whether a toddler or four-footed pal, bring something a special. Snickers was amused by this shark container designed for kids's snacks.
Now that you've committed to bringing a tote bag for the chips, a roll of paper towels might come in handy if things get really messy. And it's not like they're heavy to carry. Toss a pack of Wet Naps in the bag, too, if you tend to get messy.
Bring along a trash bag or two, for easy cleanup when the picnic is done. Remember that running water that might not be nearby? Well, after the picnic you've got a collection of dirty plates, utensils, and probably some now-empty storage containers. Do you really want them dripping into your basket? Collect them and put them in a trash bag (or other reasonably large bag) to keep your basket clean, and not make a mess of the storage containers that will be heading back to your refrigerator after the picnic.
Remember those chunks of cheese that came wrapped from the store? It made sense to slice and serve at the picnic, but now that the wrapper is ripped, how are you going to bring them home? Bring a few plastic zip-top bags. They take no space to carry and you might find other uses for them as well, like carting off the chicken bones when you realize there's no trash bin nearby.
If you drove to the picnic, there's one last thing you might bring, but leave it in the car: a plastic gallon jug of water. Sure, many picnic areas have running water, but what if it's not available? That jug will come in handy to wash sticky hands or rinse muddy feet, if need be.
And now you can pack up the car and go home.
Disclaimer: Some samples were provided to Serious Eats; other products belonged to the author.
When proposing to his girlfriend, Shireen — a longtime PopCap fan and Peggle player — Rob took a slightly different approach.
With PopCap's help, Rob brought Shireen to San Francisco to "beta test" Peggle 2, which was still in production at the time. PopCap created a level specifically for the proposal, complete with pegs for a yes or no answer. Check out the video above to see the setup and final level.
Peggle 2 launched earlier this month for Xbox One. Read our review for more on the game.
Joel Koh!!
Today I made miniature roast dinner pendents with lovely filigree frames x
You should all be following Tuck Shop Jewellery for amazing, tiny surprises
We've all seen Transformers do their titular thing with ease but, when slowed down, it's quite the complicated and laborious process. There are a lot of hinges and gaskets and pistons that have to move around in different stages in order to turn a...
Joel KohD'aaww
Hey, me too! If I had a tail it probably would have fallen off by now.
BUT
I’m one step closer to completing the Rory book, and that fills my heart with glee.
Joel KohDrunken X-men Christmas Party
Jean & Scott, Episode 6 by Max Wittert
(Twitter: TallBlondNRich / Instagram: FionaSnapple)
See previous episodes:
Merry Christmas o
X-NOG
ahhhh I freakin love these
I use one of those old phones where you type with numbers—for example, to type "Y", you press 9 three times. Some words have consecutive letters on the same number. When they do, you have to pause between letters, making those words annoying to type. What English word has the most consecutive letters on the same key?
Stewart Bishop
We can answer that question with the following headache-inducing shell command, which finds all words in a given list which use the same key a bunch of times in a row:
cat wordlist.txt | perl -pe 's/^(.*)\$/\L\$& \U\$&/g' | tr 'ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ' '2223334445556667777888999' | grep -P "(.)\1\1\1\1\1"
The winner, according to this script, is nonmonogamous, which requires you to type seven consecutive letters (nonmono) with the "6" key.[1]It's actually tied with nonmonotonic. These no doubt both lose to more obscure words which weren't in the wordlists I used.
Phone Keyboard Sentences
It's rare for a word to have all its letters on the same key; the longest common ones are only a few letters.[2]Like "tutu". Nevertheless, using only these words, we can write a high def MMO on TV, a phrase whose words use only one number key each.
There are plenty of other phrases like this, although some of them are a bit of a stretch:
Typing issues like this aren't limited to old phone keyboards. For any text input system, you can find phrases which are weird to type.
QWERTY Keyboards
It's a well-known piece of trivia among word geeks that "stewardesses" is the longest common word you can type on a QWERTY keyboard using only the left hand.
In fact, it's possible to write entire sentences with just the left hand. For example, try typing the words We reserved seats at a secret Starcraft fest. Weird, huh?
Let's take a look at a few more sentences—written with the help of some even messier shell commands and Python scripts[3]I constructed these sentences by searching text logs for sentence fragments that fit a particular constraint, then randomly connecting those groups together using a technique called Markov chaining. You can see the code I used here.—which follow various constraints:
Left hand only
Right hand only
Home row only
Top row only
And lastly, if anyone wants to know why you're not more active on social media, you only need the top row to explain that you're ...
Joel Koh:'(
Ash Ketchum, eat your heart out; this comic about the lives of a Venusaur and the baby Charmander it adopts, all to the tune of "You Are My Sunshine," will teach you more about friendship, love and caring than that 11-year old and his electric rodent ...
Joel KohSPOILERS FOR HOBBIT PART 2
But otherwise, MIND BLOWN.
DESOLATION OF SMAUG, DUDE. CAN WE TALK ABOUT ELVES AND THEIR CONCEPT OF MORTALITY IN DESOLATION OF SMAUG?
Guys I wrote a straight-up essay about my feelings about elves. It’s…long. It’s about Thranduil and Legolas mostly - I also loved Tauriel but she doesn’t quite fit the theme of the essay, so I’ll get to her later. Putting it under a cut for minor Desolation of Smaug spoilers - read at your own risk.
Here’s the thing: I’ve always had a lot of feelings about LOTR elves. That is, I have feelings about them in THEORY, but not always in practice. Because most of the elves in the LOTR trilogy are buttoned-up, formal, sticks-in-the-mud. They don’t always touch on my favorite thing about elves: THEY ARE SUPER WEIRD. Seriously. Sometimes I’m tempted to think that Galadriel was a pretty glowy lady who was nice and helpful to the Fellowship and then I watch it again and HOLY SHIT she is a weird lady who talks too slowly and reads everyone brains and occasionally loses her shit and goes all DARK ELF on you and I LOVE IT. Galadriel is a weird lady who’s been around for way too long and doesn’t care what you think. She’s beautiful and glamorous and literally glows with inner light but that doesn’t make her not terrifying and strange. THAT. That is my favorite part about elves. What do they care about what mortals think of them? Those mortals will be dead in a few hundred years anyway.
So I was REALLY excited to meet the Mirkwood elves in The Desolation of Smaug. These are elves, but they’re DIFFERENT elves. They’re not the formal, chanting, ethereal, spacey-eyed dudes we’re used to; they’re party-loving, tree-climbing, elk-riding, weird, reclusive, elf hicks. I suspect the production team drew some inspiration from the Druids, considering the amount of antlers that Thranduil incorporates into his decor, so my personal headcanon is they have like nude ritual dance parties in the moonlight on a weekly basis. WEIRD ELF JACKPOT.
You guys know how excited I’ve been about Thranduil. That’s not a question. It is unambiguous. I HAVE BEEN EXCITED ABOUT THRANDUIL EVER SINCE THE MOVIES WERE ANNOUNCED. I love Lee Pace, but I was excited about Thranduil even BEFORE Lee Pace was announced, so Lee Pace playing Thranduil was just like someone telling me “you know that thing you’re excited about? It’s going to be WAY BETTER than you ever imagined.” It seems like every Thranduil-thing I’ve been exposed to since then has only made it better and better. The reason An Unexpected Journey was a letdown for me had more to do with the fact that nothing in the rest of the movie came anywhere close to matching the glee that I felt upon seeing Thranduil riding an elk, than with the quality of the movie itself.
Fortunately, The Desolation of Smaug happened. And my glee intensified to the point where I was doing what can only be described as a “dying cockroach dance” in my seat while making little high-pitched noises of happiness. Like, GOD. Thranduil’s first appearance in the movie is a series of slow pans over closeups of his costume and eyes with a voiceover. The best thing about Thranduil is that however I picture him, the reality is EVEN BETTER.
My favorite part, and here come spoilers:
Thorin straight-up RIPS THRANDUIL A NEW ONE for not helping his people fight the dragon. And Thranduil just gets THIS LOOK that manages to say a thousand things at once, thanks to Lee Pace’s expertise at moving his face. It’s not one I can really describe or name, but it’s one that makes perfect sense to me, especially considering what happens next: Thranduil leans forward and gets right up in Thorin’s face and then reveals that HALF OF HIS FACE HAS BEEN STRAIGHT-UP MELTED RIGHT OFF. He’s been hiding it under some kind of elven glamour spell. He’s experienced dragonfire, he explains, and really wasn’t keen to get another taste.
I love it. I love it SO MUCH and on SO MANY LEVELS.
Thranduil then immediately reasserts his immortality after ordering Thorin to the dungeons. “A hundred years is nothing to an elf. In case, you know, you forgot I was immortal.” He likes being alive, he’s gonna be alive forever, you’re not. Mortality is not something that elves have to deal with very often at all, especially if they live in Mirkwood surrounded by pretty much only other elves with little contact with anyone else. Thranduil wants nothing to do with it.
On to Legolas.
Okay, let me own up: Legolas has always been my favorite character. Well, this really shouldn’t surprise anyone because he’s a beautiful femme man whose intense prettiness doesn’t make him any less hardcore than Aragorn, even if dirt DOES vaporize when it touches his skin. Legolas isn’t noticeably weird the way that Galadriel or Celeborn or his own dad Thranduil is, but he still sticks out from the Fellowship in more than just appearance. Legolas is super involved with the affairs of mortals, but he’s not one of them - he’s faster, can see and hear better, jumps higher, he’s stronger, he can walk on top of snow, he doesn’t need to sleep or eat a whole lot, his hair is always perfect. Also he’s immortal. That’s what makes him stick out the most. You can tell that Legolas is never really afraid for his life. Hole in the stairs? Whatever, jumping over it. Dead ghosts in a mountain? Can’t hurt me. His untarnished beauty is an outward signifier of that: nothing that happens to the Fellowship really seems able to harm Legolas. He’s not just an elf - he’s an elf PRINCE, he is never ever going to die and he’s not really used to having friends who will die either. Throughout all three movies, Legolas never gets more than a bruise on the forehead in terms of battle damage. (Always the same bruise, in the same place, btw.)
There are a few exceptions. One of them is when they meet the Balrog in Moria - and this is focused on more in the book than in the movie, but Legolas starts SCREAMING when he realizes a Balrog is coming at them. He’s the only one who really knows what it is and how worried everyone should be - Balrogs are up there with dragons for creatures who don’t give a shit about your immortality. It’s really unsettling to see the resident untouchable magical badass freak out and really shows the reader just how scary the Balrog is. Gandalf gets those lines in the movie, but I like to think that Legolas still has something of a SHITSHITSHITSHIT look on his face during his reaction shot.
The other is in The Two Towers right before the battle of Helm’s Deep. Legolas has never been afraid of orcs, but with an army of 10,000 Uruk-Hai coming with them trapped in a mountain fortress, he very clearly freaks out. He knows they don’t stand a chance. It’s the only time he ever stands up to Aragorn and challenges his judgment. Because Legolas realizes that he’s probably going to die and fuck that, he’s immortal and doesn’t want to throw his life away for what seems like a really hopeless, poorly-planned last stand. It doesn’t last that long and ten minutes later he’s back to fawning all over Aragorn, but it’s definitely a moment that happened. The only other times that Legolas gets overtly emotional is when Aragorn is in danger. One, because Aragorn JUST HAS THAT EFFECT ON PEOPLE, and also because Aragorn is like, the MOST mortal person in the group. His expected life span is shorter than anyone else’s on the Fellowship except for Boromir (fitting) and the Hobbits (whom Legolas never really seems to notice), and he also seems to have dodgy self-preservation instincts at best. Expertly demonstrated in the scene in Helm’s Deep where Aragorn just like bellyflops into a sea of orcs. Yeah. So I can see it being stressful for Legolas that his best mortal friend (up until Gimli) is also his MOST mortal friend.
Back to Desolation of Smaug: Legolas’ little nosebleed. Holy crap I LOVED it. At first I laughed, because it read as “you have tarnished my beauty! you will pay!!” but it’s not really about that. Or rather, it is, but not how you might think. Because as we’ve established, beauty = immortality to the elves. Only mortals get dirty and bloodied and scarred. Legolas’ impeccable hair isn’t just about looks; it’s about how not even dirt can touch him, so good luck with your little swords.
So Legolas bleeding - you implied his mortality. THIS IS AN INSULT. Yes, I too had the words “Nobody makes me bleed my own blood! Nobody!” go through my head at this part, but it’s also…true. Legolas doesn’t bleed! OTHER people bleed. It’s almost like immortality is a concept that needs constant reaffirmation. Because elves aren’t actually unkillable, even if they might like to think that.
Joel KohPsst. Lisa.
Nintendo declares National StreetPass Weekend on Dec. 14-15 originally appeared on Joystiq on Tue, 10 Dec 2013 14:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Joel Koh<3
This #megaman drawing wasn’t accidental. #calvinandhobbes #rush #mashup #sketchoftheday #capcom #calvin #hobbes
