Swans on Tea

Zapperz has a short post on an article that appeared in the NY Times, chumming the waters of fear about radiation from granite countertops. I see that Chad has promised and delivered a bit of a rant, pointing out that popular media could and should do science. The problem is that they don’t [...]

Western Spaghetti. Neat stop-action stuff.
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via Madame Lamb

Fourteen Passive-Aggressive Appetizers by Yoni Brenner in The New Yorker
Top thick slices of country bread with fresh goat cheese. Sprinkle with herbs and bake until crusty; serve to everyone but Jeff
OK, don’t read it. See if I care.

What’s he doing?
Drowning!
The Gin & Titonic
Ice cubes in the shape of ocean liners and icebergs
via the Amateur Economist

Survival of the Sudsiest, or George Will happens upon the fifth law of thermodynamics.
“The search for unpolluted drinking water is as old as civilization itself. As soon as there were mass human settlements, waterborne diseases like dysentery became a crucial population bottleneck. For much of human history, the solution to this chronic public-health [...]

The top ten home cooking mistakes.
Not so much mistakes as tips and hints. The author assumes you’re actually cooking, though.
MSG has a nasty reputation and can trigger a fatal reaction in a person allergic to it (a close friend of our maid of honor’s sister died of anaphylaxis after eating MSG), so it’s not [...]

Do grocery stores give us the right mix of nuts?
Does anyone like Brazil nuts? Anyone?
Taking a look at the data from the other direction, we can ask another question. Is there anyone who likes Brazil nuts and doesn’t like any other nut? In other words, how many people might not find any nuts at all [...]

Commentary on Lego fun snacks
excerpt
You can’t tell me that this isn’t a lawsuit just waiting to happen. I can only assume that their next product is fruit flavored thumbtacks.
via Daring Fireball

Evaporative (Swamp) Coolers
I was discussing this with our resident mechanical systems guru just a few days ago — really hot, humid weather had some of the HVAC systems gasping, and if you can’t reject heat anymore, the system stops cooling (a basic bit of thermodynamics lost on some people). He was reminiscing about [...]

Calculating the carbon footprint of wine: my research findings
There’s a “green line” that runs down the middle of Ohio. For points to the West of that line, it is more carbon efficient to consume wine trucked from California. To the East of that line, it’s more efficient to consume the same sized bottle of wine [...]

A cheese map of Canada, from strangemaps
Don’t complain about the bouzouki player.

Via Built on Facts, it turns out that the cellphone-popping-the-popcorn movie was A FAKE! Gasp, thud. Making popcorn with a cellphone happens only in the movies.
(or should that be “only happens in the movies?”)
More than 6 million people have watched our little videos since May 28, 2008. We are very happy [...]