lunchbooks

Sep. 14th, 2020 09:21 am
telophase: (Default)
I bought a lot of used packed-lunch-specific cookbooks because we want to try to get away from our default of driving through somewhere and eating in the car when we want to get out of the house (and instead make our own lunches and drive somewhere to eat in the car...).

This one is written by a woman who invented a reusable bag. Well, good for her so far. And then every recipe is accompanied by an "eco tip" to help you reduce plastic waste which are usually obvious and banal--when buying lunch meat go to the deli counter and get just as much as you need, and bring (one of her) bags with you to put it in instead of prepackaged slices!--but sometimes are "Bzuh?"--shop bulk and bring your own glass jars to put the bulk stuff in! I mean, what grocery store is she shopping at that allows you to bring your own jar to weight the bulk stuff in? The scales in the ones I see are all tared for the containers they provide!

This is, of course, completely ignoring the facts that (a) a small fraction of the public is in the position to actually get to and shop at the sort of upscale grocery store that provides bulk foods and (b) the problem of overused plastics is huge and systemic and individual consumer's use is but a small fraction of that, so even if all her readers stopped using plastics altogether it wouldn't make a fucking dent. And convincing individual consumers that the problem would be solved if they stopped using plastic bags turns attention away from the real sources of the problem.

I mmmight be a wee bit bitter.

Some more tips...Read more... )

Oh, dear

Oct. 21st, 2010 08:10 am
telophase: (children like you were left to perish on)
Dear Library Science Graduate Student From Another University Who I have Never Met;

You left a message on my work voicemail a day or two after I left for Foreign Parts saying that you'd noticed I was the I.T. Librarian and in charge of the library website at my university and that you had a project for your class and as part of this project you were required to create a Voki. And that you had no idea what that was and was hoping that I'd be able to tell you.

The reason I am not returning your phone call is not that it's been almost two weeks since you left the voicemail and your assignment is most likely already finished and turned in. It is that you are a GRADUATE STUDENT in LIBRARY SCIENCE and it didn't occur to you that there are two significantly more useful resources to consult about your question than a total stranger you found on the internets, to whit:

A) The professor who gave you the assignment

and

B) G O O G L E

Please note that until five minutes ago, I had no idea what a Voki was, either, and yet I managed to answer my own reference question almost instantaneously. I did not need to spend valuable time that I could instead spend typing snarky letters on the intartubes idly poking about other universities' websites and telephoning their webmasters to ask the question.

I hope that your area of specialization is not Reference, as you obviously need to take a few more classes on the subject before you are ready to be unleashed upon the unsuspecting populace.

No love,
[personal profile] telophase
telophase: (Matsuda - teh drama!)
Book 'lending' costs publishers billions!

The HORROR.










...book trafficking culture was evident, with many travelers brazenly displaying the totebags used to transport printed contraband. *snerk*
telophase: (Default)
Dear Design Star Contestant:

"Functionable" is not a word.

Thank you,

[personal profile] telophase
telophase: (Nell thinks you're an idiot)
From the campus announcement email:
Factory Honda Fit Rims for sell... great Deal! -- Submitted by: [email redacted to protect the IDIOTIC]

Honda Fit Rims available for sell. MSRP $396.28, half off!!!
SELL is a verb! You SELL objects! When you are selling at object, it is FOR SALE! There is NO SUCH THING as "FOR SELL". You are ATTENDING COLLEGE and should have learned that by now!

We are overlooking the inappropriate capitalization in the headline. For now.
telophase: (Kenpachi loves you)
I can't wait to use this on the next person who fails to Google a simple concept...

http://letmegooglethatforyou.com/?q=artist+alley+guide
telophase: (Nell thinks you're an idiot)
On the Forgotten Realms reading project, I am one-third through Elaine Cunningham's Tangled Webs, which features a female drow. Who is just too damn normal, and the rest of the book is just too damn boring. OK, yeah, I missed the book that's her origin story so perhaps I missed a spectacular transformation from a whip-wielding evil dominatrix* to this sort of boring normal woman who happens to have pitch-black skin and white hair. And whose author handwaves the canon that drow are evil so everyone's supposed to be wary and frightened of them by having an entire shipful of sailors accept her for who she is with little drama. Well, all people who are her enemies are terrified of drow, and all her friends are easily accepting. Convenient, that.
Snark continues )
telophase: (Default)
GAH finally managed to get my hard drive backed up so I could install updates. WinXP had an update out that apparently on some machines broke XP so bad you had to reinstall from the start, much like what happened a few months ago with my Vista laptop, so I elected to flirt with danger and not update until I'd gotten ALL MY ART backed up. WHereupon I found that someone who I'm not naming but whose name rhymes with [livejournal.com profile] myrialux had managed to pack all my cables in one box, separately from their components for some inexplicable reason that not even he can explain now for the move, which resulted in a lot of interesting language as I set up various electronic things in my apartment and had to deduce which cable when with what. Anyway, the upshot is that the AC adapter for my MyBook backup thingybopper went missing, and I had to order a new one.

But it's all backed up now and, as I expected, a newer patch or update fixed the problem with the broken update, and there seem to have been absolutely no problems. So far.

But all that's beside the point. So today, in addition to the forgettable book (Elfshadow), I also finished The Halfling's Gem book 3 of the Icewind Dale Trilogy. Read more... )
telophase: (Default)
I'm still continuing the project of reading Forgotten Realms books and snarking at them - it's just that I got mired down in one that has nothing to recommend it whatsoever. It's one of the ones lent me by [livejournal.com profile] puppleball, Book Two of The Harpers, Elfshadow, featuring everyone's second favorite Mary Sue, Arilyn Moonblade.
Read more... )
telophase: (Hiromasa - Uh...what?)
...why I will not be hiring the host of Destination: Truth on the SciFi Channel to go on any scientific expeditions for me:

1) (when in the Gobi desert seeking giant acid-spitting worms, after they found a dinosaur fossil): "We took a sample of the fossil to see if we could get DNA out of the organic matter."

2) (when in the Australian rainforest seeking the Yowie, and finding a tree with severly scratched bark): "We took a sample of the bark to see if we could find any organic matter."


(All quotes paraphrased.)

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