Observations Along The Road... at Dreamwidth

Yesterday was a crazy day, and I didn’t get the news chum stew on the stove. Today is chilly and rainy, so I’ve made an extra big pot:

• Two food news items:
  • Chocolate Helps Coughs. Here are the results of an interesting survey: when it comes to coughs, chocolate calms them down better than codeine. This is from a recent study where patients who took a new medicine containing cocoa (versus cough syrup) saw a significant improvement in their cough within two days. Another study, performed at the Imperial College of London, further explains: There’s an alkaloid in cocoa that is better at suppressing the urge to cough than codeine.  Cool.
  • Not Created Equal. When it comes to calories, it turns out, they are not created equal. Here’s an Ars Technica article on the subject, which is based on a report from one of my favorite podcasts, Gastropod. This is because not all calories are stored the same in the body, nor are they burned the same.
• Yiddishkayt and Fiddler: Two interesting articles related to Adam Kantor, currently on Broadway in Fiddler:
  • Offstage Mirrors Onstage. It turns out that Adam has gotten into relationship with his onstage bride, informing his performance in interesting ways.
  • Yiddishkayt Informs Art. Here’s an article on how Adam’s Helix adventures informed his performance.
• Two font related items:
  • Clearview Down The Drain. The FHWA has dumped Clearview, the font to which it gave interim approval a few years ago.  It’s back to Highway Gothic. I was never a fan of Clearview, but I didn’t hate it either. It appears what did it in was not science, but cost.
  • & The Rest. You probably don’t think much about special characters like “&”. But font designers do. And their favorite character is the ampersand. This speaks to the ampersand’s individuality: a font of nothing but ampersands is easy to imagine in a way that a font of only lower case “j“s could never be.
• Diversity Makes Things Better. I keep hearing great podcasts related to diversity. After the Yes, Yes, No segment in this podcast is an excellent piece on why diversity in the workforce is so important. So where do you store your Ketchup?
• Tying a Tie. Here are 30 different ways to tie a tie. I only know two. I’ll have to try the others, but I fear they will be too bulky.
• Curvy Dolls. Mattel is now making Barbie in a variety of skin tones, eye colors, hair styles, and shapes. About damn time.
• Think Before You Answer. Going around Facebook last week was a viral warning about the “Be Like Bill” quiz. It turns out the quiz wasn’t a virus, but the point is valid. Each of those “quizzes” you do collects personal information that could be later used for things like security questions. I no longer do all those silly quizzes.
• ASCII Art on Facebook. Did you know that for most pictures you post of Facebook, an ASCII Art version is made. I remember the days of ASCII art, back when we had a 1403 Printer.
• Progressive Judaism and the Western Wall. Here’s a big one: Israel just voted to allow non-Orthodox prayer at a segment of the Western Wall. If this holds, it is a biggie: one of the first big concessions to Progressive Judaism that has stuck.
• Drugs Doctors Won’t Take. Here’s an interesting list of 8 drugs that doctors won’t take. I have taken some of these in the past, such as Advair,  and I currently take Omperazole (Prilosec) every other day. I should cut that down. I’d add one to the list: the demon Afrin nose spray, which is incredibly addictive.
• Do You Need Pet Insurance. Our daughter has been nagging us for a dog, seeing only the fun from a dog. I, on the other hand, see the cost. Here’s an interesting assessment of whether pet insurance is necessary, and how things have changed from the old days.
• The Shuttle in the News. This week was the anniversary of the Challenger disaster. But there was other shuttle news. Houston has put on display the Shuttle Mockup with the Space Shuttle Piggyback 747. Cool.
• Neptunes Net. Here’s an interesting article on Neptunes Net, which I know primarily because it is across the street from Camp Hess Kramer.
• Transit in LA. Los Angeles has deployed a multi-modal transit planning app.

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