Coffee scholar and gourmand James Hoffman posits a simple explanation for this Italian prohobition–lactose intolerance. There’s a lot of gelato for sale in Italy that casts doubt on this, but it’s an interesting hypothesis. It puts me in mind of one of my favorite explainers, Marvin Harris. I’d try Our Kind if this video whets your whistle for explaining behavior.
Uncategorized
Apostrophe Catastrophe
Dune
I made occasion to re-read Frank Herbert’s Dune again, for what I think was the third time, in anticipation of the Villenueve film. I attempted it once in high school, found it dense and inscrutable, but then read it again in college. I stayed one book ahead of my roommate-at-the-time and read all of the titles in the original series, from Dune through Chapterhouse: Dune. I was crazy about the story and have always wanted to work my way back through.
My introduction to Dune, however, was David Lynch’s movie, which came out when I was about ten years old. Star Wars it was not, but I loved it.
Having gone back to the original novel, what stuck out is how embellished Lynch’s film was. I’m not going to bash it, but there are a number of additions that appear nowhere in the book: heart plugs and the guild navigators, to name two. Topless Robot has a good listicle on this.
I found Herbert’s style terse this go around. Of all the voices in the book, I found the dialog and behavior of Jessica to be hard to believe (yes, I know it’s a book that features giant sandworms who make an addictive drug). And as tersely as it began, it ends suddenly.
My curiosity is piqued now: perhaps it was the six-novel stretch that I loved, which informed the nascent novel, that I look back so fondly upon. Might need to dip into Messiah again.
HyperChiller
Why *Not* Notes
ldtephens on why Apple Notes won’t be his daily note-taknig app:
Many of the notes that I take throughout the day are notes that I will want to do something with later. A note may become a task in Things, a reminder, or event in Fantastical, a new draft for this blog in Ulysses, or a journal entry in Day One. Missing from Notes is the lack of export options or actions to get notes out of Notes. This is a dealbreaker for making Notes my everyday note’s app. That’s why I use Drafts. Ya know, the old saying “text starts here”. Any text starts in Drafts, including stuff that may eventually end up in Notes.
I agree whole-heartedly. I like Notes’ ubiquity and Apple Pencil support, but I am never inspired to use it compared to Drafts, OmniOutliner, or BBEdit. Quick note is tempting, and I’ll surely check it out, but the indie tools always call to me.
Rudy’s Muckabees
Remember when Rudy Guiliani assumed the mantle of leadership after 9/11?
Me neither.
Watch: Rudy Giuliani is now pushing products in a MyPillow ad and it’s truly depressing
This Morning’s One-Pan Egg Sandwich
One egg, one slice of rye. I went a little heavy on the cheese because that’s what I felt like doing.
Farpoint II
Took the boys to Farpoint Collectibles II today, which is housed in a []local antiques market](https://www.facebook.com/ShorelineVintage/). One of the owners, Frank, originally ran It’s a Toy Store! in Richland, and he was there. It was good to see him and chat, as well as the owners of Farpoint. I showed a picture of the boys from 2011 at the original store, and he loved it. I realized how long we’ve been making these quick little jaunts to the local shop and how soon, Joey will be able to drive himself there.
They were featured on an episode of “A Toy Store Near You.”
Wee nerds at It’s a Toy Store! in 2011
Twitter Blue
Juli Clover, writing for MacRumors:
Twitter Blue will include an “Undo Tweet” option that holds a tweet for a set period of time before sending it out so you can choose to undo it, and a “Reader Mode” that makes it easier to read long threads.
I might go for something like this if it was a way to support a premium AI that could be used in apps like TweetBot and Twitterific. I use the official app (alongside both of the much better paid third party apps) only because Twitter denuded their (decidedly better) third-party clients. Still hurts though.
Twitter Confirms Plans for ‘Twitter Blue’ $2.99 Monthly Subscription Service
Happy 18th Birthday to WordPress
Matt Mullenweg:
Today marks eighteen years since the very first release of WordPress. I consider myself so lucky to have co-founded the project alongside Mike Little. Who could have imagined that our nights and weekends hacking on blogging software, a fork of b2/cafelog, could turn into something powering over 40% of the web? Or that nearly twenty years in, it would be getting better faster than it ever has been?
Margaritas!
The truth is, you don’t need more than tequila, triple sec (or Grand Mariner or Cointreau), and some squishly fresh limes to make a great margarita. Mixes such as these, however, make a drink with a different mouth feel and attenuate the acidity than comes with a purist’s vision of the canonical drink.
“It’s Just Not Good Enough”
John Gruber, reviewing the M1 iPads Pro:
The elephant in the room is iPadOS. It’s just not good enough. In the same way that Intel’s chips were holding back Macs, iPadOS has been holding back iPad Pros. With Intel chips, the hardware was holding back the Mac platform. With iPads, it’s the software holding the platform back. This hardware is indisputably amazing, and iPadOS is fine for casual use. But it still feels like I’m trying to do fine detail work while wearing oven mitts for my day-to-day work.
As a person who went whole hog on doing (almost) everything on the iPad before COVID-19 scooted me into the house and rejiggered my life such that I spent my days before a screen, camera, and a mic, this observation resonates. I grew to love the Mac and the desktop experience all over again, and realized that the deep bench of macOS software was not only productivity enhancing, but just plain fun for a hobbyist.
Paninis
Wawa headquarters, in a boardroom, with brains larger than mine, where a conversation was held:
Executive 2: “Panini? That word is already plural.”
Executive 1: “What do you mean?”
Executive 2: “It’s an Italian word. ‘Panini’ is plural aready. You don’t have two ‘paninis.’ You have two panini.”
Executive 1: “Are you telling me we didn’t sell toasted raviolis under the heat lamps by the counter?”
Executive 2: “That’s correct. We did not, in fact, sell toasted raviolis. The bag said ‘ravioli.”
Executive 1: “Because it was already plural.”
Executive 2: “That’s correct.”
Executive 1: “My life is one big lie.”
Executive 2: “It’s not a big deal. People call them raviolis all the time.”
Executive 1: “So back to the paninis.”
Executive 2: “Panini.”
Executive 1: “Right, panini. So what is one called?”
Executive 2: “A panino.”
Executive 1: “Seriously? You’re fucking kidding me.”
Executive 2:”No shit. One is a panino.”
Executive 1: “What’s one ravioli?”
Executive 2: “Don’t make me say it.”
Executive 1: “Fucking say it.”
Executive 2: “A raviolo.”
Executive 1:”Goddam it.”
Executive 3: “So were going to put up signs that say ‘Panini?'”
Executive 2: “We put up signs that said ‘ravioli.'”
Executive 1: “Because that’s what they’re called.”
Executive 2: “No one orders one raviolo. It’s a dish.”
Executive 3: “But you would very likely order one panini.”
Executive 2: “Panino, if we’re shooting for accuracy here.”
Executive 3: “Fuck.”
Executive 1: “No one says anything. They tap screens to order.”
Executive 3: “That’s a great point.”
Executive 2: “Very true. But the signs. They say ‘paninis.'”
Executive 3: “But people will say, ‘let’s get paninis from Wawa for lunch!'”
Executive 1: “God willing.”
Executive 2: “I know… it sounds one way. But it looks really bad in print.”
Executive 3, eyeballing Executive 1 nervously: “What do you think?”
Executive 1: “The signs read ‘paninis.’ And you can have #’2’s office.”
Android 12’s Material You
Google:
Starting with Android 12 on Pixel devices, you’ll be able to completely personalize your phone with a custom color palette and redesigned widgets. Using what we call color extraction, you choose your wallpaper, and the system automatically determines which colors are dominant, which ones are complementary and which ones just look great. It then applies those colors across the entire OS: the notification shade, the lock screen, the volume controls, new widgets and much more.
I found this because Matt Birchler is nice enough to make great wallpapers (what we old-school Mac users call desktop images) for the Mac and iPhone, and he made some inspired by Material You (thanks, Matt!). But this sounds like a great design touch, one that is present, for example, in Google Forms: when you select a banner image, the form adapts its color scheme to match the colors that predominate in the header image. It’s pretty cool.
Dickhead
Boing Boing:
Daniel Warmus from New York was busted after bragging to someone at his dentist’s office about breaking into the Capitol on January 6th – and even pulling out his phone to show off the video he took from his “Capitol tour.” A third person overheard his boastful recount and tipped off the FBI, who then found security footage of him, sporting a “CNN is fake news” sweatshirt and “Trump 2020” cap and toting a “Fuck Antifa” flag, while romping around inside the Capitol. The gentleman was arrested on Tuesday.
I love how they call him a gentleman.