Divertimento #198

Deep-fried ranch dressing.  Ranch seasoning is mixed with buttermilk and cream cheese before getting coated in panko and plunged into the fryer. Served with a side of honey spiked with hot sauce.

Salient discussion in an explainlikeimfive subreddit post about why salt "brings out flavors" in food.  ?Try some in coffee to get rid of bitterness.

Teach your children how to play poker.  Don't start with the "order of hands."  Just one card hands, age 4, learn how to assess odds and bluff.

"Prop bets" in professional sports are endangering the integrity of the game.  Making the first pitch a ball could enrich the pitcher and his friends.

Minnesota farmers are facing a financial crisis because of tariffs and disruptions on global trade.

Sex toys are being thrown onto the floor in WNBA games, not as jokes or taunts, but to promote one of the memecoin cryptocurrencies.  "“This is empowering to every f—ing crypto community to start thinking outside the box. Get creative and f—ing do something that makes people actually laugh..."

More information than you will ever need to know about Manneken Pis (the "little pissing man" of Brussels).

Serious concerns being raised about Donald Trump's mental acuity.

"A high-profile example came in mid-July, when Trump claimed his uncle, the late professor John Trump, had taught Ted Kaczynski, better known as the Unabomber, at MIT.

Trump recalled: “I said: ‘What kind of a student was he, Uncle John? Dr John Trump.’ I said: ‘What kind of a student?’ And then he said: ‘Seriously, good.’ He said: ‘He’d correct – he’d go around correcting everybody.’ But it didn’t work out too well for him.”

The problem is: that cannot possibly be true. First, Trump’s uncle died in 1985, and Kaczynski was only publicly identified as the Unabomber in 1996. Second, Kaczynski did not study at MIT."

Ham and Pickle Roll Up on a Potato Skin. Hollowed out potato jackets loaded up with sour cream, cream cheese, chopped pickles and ham, and garnished for good measure with crumbled potato chips.

A longread about sudden disappearances of psychoses after immunosuppressive therapy.

By the summer, her cancer was in remission. She hadn’t taken antipsychotics for months, and yet “her psychotic symptoms are gone,” a doctor wrote. Christine told the doctors, “She had a twenty-year psychiatric history. Have you heard of this? Could any of her medications have caused this?”.. Christine found a handful of recent case studies that documented drastic psychiatric recoveries after people were treated with drugs that dampen immune activity...  “I think the consensus is that we are probably only aware of the tip of the iceberg of different kinds of antibodies that can produce autoimmune diseases, and certainly that holds for autoimmune psychosis,” he said.

"A Tourist Ended Up With a Wild Bat in Her Mouth — And Nearly $21,000 in Medical Bills."  The cost was not for treatment of rabies, but for the rabies shots.

Plastic turf fields are replacing grass for sports activities in the U.S.  "The allure of synthetic grass is strong, but installing fields can easily top $1 million, and many municipalities discover that replacements and repairs can cost many tens of thousands of dollars, experts said."  Apart from costs, there are concerns re health and surface temperatures.

Swimming pools can pop out of the ground if the surrounding area is soaked by rain. "Hydrostatic ground water pressure is a real thing and some pools are meant to never be drained due to that pressure. In the 70’s during the gas shortage I saw an underground gas tank that was pumped dry rise to the surface like a surfacing submarine."

An interesting longread about Minnesota wild rice.

A study published this spring in Communications Earth and Environment says off-reservation rice harvests are dropping 5% to 7% annually in part due to climate change, including wetter early summers and warmer winters... But concerns about genetic integrity of wild rice cultivation, long a tension for many Indigenous communities across northern Minnesota, came to a head in 2024... There’s heightened fear that cultivated rice, which critics say is genetically manipulated, could drift by wind or water into stands of natural rice and contaminate or kill wild rice..."

If you love rocks, minerals, and fossils, feast your eyes on the offerings at Sotheby's recent "geek week" offerings. 

Nixtamal & Wild Rice Bowl with Wóžapi & Bison Meatballs or Sweet Potato Dumplings. Bison meatballs or sweet potato dumplings garnished with mixed berry wóžapi sauce. Served on a bed of nixtamal (white corn, blue corn and yellow corn) mixed with wild rice and seasoned with maple and spices.  There’s also an optional crunch from spiced cricket-and-seed topping.

"The study indicates that Neanderthals, in addition to smashing bones to access the marrow—a behavior shared by their earliest African ancestors—also crushed them into fragments and boiled them to obtain bone grease, a nutrient-rich resource."

Serious concerns about why Tesla's auto-driving vehicles keep crashing.

"The Tesla Files... contain more than 2,400 customer complaints about unintended acceleration and more than 1,500 braking issues – 139 involving emergency braking without cause, and 383 phantom braking events triggered by false collision warnings. More than 1,000 crashes are documented... First responders couldn’t open the doors because the handles were retracted. The teenagers burned to death in the back seat... Tesla deliberately limited documentation of particular issues to avoid the risk of this information being requested under subpoena..."

A sequel to the "grannyshack." Developments with a skybridge or hallway connecting two homes have been popping up all over Seattle in recent years... On paper, what you’re looking at is a single-family home and two accessory dwelling units, an arrangement locally known as a 3-pack. These compounds popped up after Seattle eased building restrictions on A.D.U.s in 2019, as part of the city’s efforts to increase housing density and drive down prices. A.D.U.s are built on land that would not otherwise be developed — often, what would be a house’s backyard — and tend to cost less than conventional single-family homes.

Jelly kills hummingbirds.  "Jelly is like fast food—tasty, with plenty of calories when a bird needs a quick pick-me-up. But it’s also like fast food in lacking essential nutrients that birds need. When people tell me orioles bring their fledglings to jelly feeders, I cringe."

Why do bedouins wear black robes in hot deserts?

A longread about the utter carnage at Normandy on D-day.

If you find one of these under the sink in your hotel room, know that it is a panic button.

Fields in Ukraine are covered with a spiderweb-like conglomeration of fiber-optic cables.  This is basically "drone poop."  There are also innumerable "mini-mines" that will take your foot off, but not kill you.

"Both Russia and Ukraine use FPV drones that have about 10km of fiber optic cable on them, this fiber optic cable is constantly directly connected to the drone operators, making it completely immune to jamming and EW systems. The disadvantage is this kind of pollution."

Peanut butter bacon cakes.  Pancake-battered, thick-cut bacon that’s served with peanut butter whipped cream, grape jelly and banana chips.

The word "anecdote" (1670s) originally meant "secret or private stories," from French anecdote (17c.) or directly from Medieval Latin anecdota, from Greek anekdota "things unpublished." "Procopius' 6c. Anecdota, unpublished memoirs of Emperor Justinian full of court gossip, gave the word a sense of "revelation of secrets," which decayed in English to "brief, amusing story" by the 1760s.

You may be surprised which U.S. university has the most varsity sports (42 different varsity sports teams).

The "marshmellow test" shows that cuttlefish have intelligence at least similar to young children.

"The soft drink Fanta was invented by Coca-Cola, an American company, inside of Nazi Germany during World War II. Developed at the height of the Third Reich, the new soda ensured the brand’s continued popularity. Fanta became a point of nationalistic pride and was consumed by the German public, from the Fraus cooking at home to the highest officials of the Nazi party. The drink was technically fruit-flavored, but limited wartime resources made that descriptor not wholly accurate. Its ingredients were less than appetizing: leftover apple fibers, mash from cider presses, and whey, a cheese by-product. “[Fanta] was made from the leftovers of the leftovers,” says Mark Pendergrast, who, as the author of For God, Country, and Coca-Cola, revealed this hidden past. “I don’t imagine it tasted very good.”"

The Pope's childhood home in Illinois had 750 sq ft of living area.

A snail in New Zealand lays eggs from its neck.

If you've ever wondered how many penises are depicted in the Bayeaux tapestry, you can find the answer via a link at Neatorama (although scholars disagree on the exact number).  

"Mr. Trump is now not only a major crypto dealer; he is also the industry’s top policy maker. So far in his second term, Mr. Trump has leveraged his presidential powers in ways that have benefited the industry — and in some cases his own company — even though he had spent years deriding crypto as a haven for drug dealers and scammers. He has filled his administration with sympathizers to the crypto cause, including by appointing a former adviser to industry players as chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission. In addition, the Justice Department recently disbanded a crypto crimes task force, continuing a broader unwinding of Biden-era scrutiny of the industry."  Details, analysis, and commentary at the link.

"The inhabitants of Carthage were long thought to have derived from Levantine Phoenicians. But an eight-year study suggests they were more closely related to Greeks."

Savory Éclairs.  Choux pastry eclair with bánh mì or lobster filling. The bánh mì includes pork confit, chicken liver pâté, pickled carrot and daikon, cucumber and sriracha mayo, garnished with micro cilantro. The lobster mixes lobster meat with celery mayo, Cholula hot sauce, lime and chives.

"Dr. Ira Leeds, a Yale Medicine colorectal surgeon, said ghost poops — or nirvana poops, as he calls them — easily (but noticeably) pass through the anal canal, sink to the bottom of the toilet, and leave no residue when wiping. These three factors are indicative of good bowel health."

A 19-year-old girl did 13 cartwheels in a row, then went blind.

"After consulting an ophthalmologist, it transpired that I had ruptured blood vessels in my macula, the central part of the retina responsible for detailed vision. The amount of blood was small – like a tiny ink dot – but enough to block my central vision. She said it would take far longer than two weeks to heal: if I was lucky, I might be able to see again in three months. I was legally blind – I wouldn’t be able to drive, finish my studies or watch TV."

"I’ve been on a new contraceptive pill for 8 months now and since then my hair has been growing straight."

Two AIs discuss the Shakespeare authorship question.

I have avoided or minimized references to Trump in this linkfest.  For those fascinated by that subject, McSweeney's has an ongoing post entitled "Lest We Forget the Horrors: An Unending Catalog of Trump’s Cruelties, Collusions, Corruptions, and Crimes."  As of the end of July there are details on 364 atrocities.

"The Silurian hypothesis is a thought experiment, which assesses modern science's ability to detect evidence of a prior advanced civilization, perhaps several million years ago... Frank and Schmidt speculate such a civilization could have gone to space and left artifacts on other celestial bodies, such as the Moon and Mars."

"America’s secularization was an immense social transformation. Has it left us better off? People are unhappier than they’ve ever been and the country is in an epidemic of loneliness. It’s not just secularism that’s to blame, but those without religious affiliation in particular rank lower on key metrics of well-being. They feel less connected to others, less spiritually at peace and they experience less awe and gratitude regularly... Religion provides what sociologists call the “three B’s”: belief, belonging and behaviors. It offers beliefs that supply answers to the tough questions of life. It gives people a place they feel they belong, a community where they are known. And it tells them how to behave, or at least what tenets should guide their action. Religious institutions have spent millenniums getting really good at offering these benefits to people.

Before and after photos of carotenosis (from overdosing on carrots).  Some salient discussion in the thread.

Winning photos from the Wildlife Comedy Awards (2022)

"European tourists who toted home bottles of water from a holy well in Ethiopia were likely hoping for blessings and spiritual cleansing—but instead carried an infectious curse and got an intestinal power cleanse.  Three people in Germany and four in the UK fell ill with cholera after directly drinking or splashing their faces with the holy water. Two required intensive care. Luckily, they all eventually recovered, according to a report in the journal Eurosurveillance."

Mushroom "calamari."  Deep-fried oyster mushrooms stand in for squid in this vegan and gluten-free ode to the crispy seafood bar snack. They’re ready for dunking with a side of chipotle sauce.

Donald Trump's behavior and actions doomed the previously-favored Conservative candidate for prime minister in Canada, resulting in a victory for Liberals.

"An idea circulating [on TikTok] is that a new wedding rule should be introduced, stipulating that guests must not say goodbye to the happy couple, but should just leave. That way, the newly spliced spouses are allowed to enjoy the most expensive party they will ever throw, rather than being persistently interrupted and pulled off the dancefloor."  For some reason it's called a "French exit."

Kosher salt is iodine-deficient.

The least common birthday in the United States is December 25.  The perfectly logical reason why is explained in this todayilearned subreddit post.

Headline of the day: Kansas babysitter checking for monsters finds man hiding under bed.

Mother of child who died of measles: “"Yes, absolutely; we would absolutely not take the MMR. The measles wasn't that bad, and they got over it pretty quickly," the mother replied, speaking again of her four living children.  The father then chimed in to falsely claim that measles is "good for the body" and that people who survive the illness are left with stronger immune systems that can fight off cancers later in life. This is a dangerous falsehood that Kennedy has also recently repeated."

Hiking the 1000 miles of the Iditarod.  "A Minnesotan following a famous sled dog path was the first woman to arrive on foot Saturday night in the human-powered version of the race across interior Alaska.  Pulling a sled packed with 55 pounds of gear, Kari Gibbons hiked into Nome after a little more than 27 days navigating the Alaska wilderness to win the Iditarod Trail Invitational 1000.

A comprehensive takedown of state government support of horse racing the United States.  "Maryland uses as much as $91 million a year in slot machine revenue to prop up its horse racing industry. The state last year agreed to acquire the decrepit Pimlico track and invest up to an additional $400 million to upgrade it. Pennsylvania has sunk over $3.5 billion over the past two decades into its racehorse development fund."  Attendance is plummeting.  "Racing is a minute or two of speed and a lot of waiting in between. “For young people,” he said, “it’s too slow. Horse racing is just too slow.”

"So it gladdened my cynical old heart when I saw one of my goddaughters recently and learned of the latest high-school craze: visible pimple patches.  Hydrocolloid patches are a helpful skincare product for anyone of any age suffering from spots – but they’re especially good for teens who are, in my pretty considerable experience, more likely to pick and fiddle with their zits, worsening the redness and chances of scarring. Pimple patches prevent this habit from transferring bacteria from fingers to spots, and discourage touching and meddling generally."

And the final photo - soft serve beer:

"Soft Serve Royal Raspberry Beer is a new "drink" in the fair's Specialty Sips lineup, only it's ice cream ... but it's also beer with a roughly 4% ABV... Burrows found someone who made an additive that allows beer to freeze into a creamier texture than a slushy-like substance full of ice crystals. "

The seven foods embedded in this post are among the 33 new foods offered last year at the Minnesota State Fair.  I'll present some of the 2025 foods in a future linkfest.