On How Is Gmail's New Interface Going To Screw Up Your Life?
The main thing I dislike about it is that I can't select a group of addresses to copy and/or drag from, say, the "to" box over to the "bcc" box. All the addresses have turned into "buttons" that can only be dragged one at a time. Prob'ly just a minor inconvenience, which I'll soon forget was so easy, but it's kept me reverting to the old style, so long as that remains an option.
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On Welcome To The New American Housing Bubble (In Coastal Elite Cities)
My wife and I have dropped by a few open houses in SF in the past month or so, coming face to face with the phenomenon of the "million dollar fixer upper".
My landlord is retiring and wants to sell the cottage I've been renting from him for the past 20 years, so we're stuck facing exactly the situation you're describing, if we'd like to stay in SF, which we do. There's no option available that isn't going to at least double our cost of living.
Fortunately, the city has a lot of resources to help, starting with the rent controls that have kept cost of living tolerable thus far (and which the Tenants Union reminds us, are forever under legislative attack, sftu.org). Granted, someone smarter or more disciplined might have thus had the wherewithal to implement a healthy savings regimen... but, alas, we can't approach the 20%+ down that banks are demanding for loaning into a tenancy-in-common (which is what staying where we live would involve, lumped in with two other cottages on the same plot of land), even on a property for which we're being asked to pay somewhat less than half a mil (gratefully?).
We attended a first time homebuyers' workshop last week, as a pre-requisite to be eligible for the city's "below market rate" housing, to open that up as an option, and there, we learned that SF has a Down-payment Assistance Loan Program (DALP): depending on one's household income, city residents who have never owned real estate anywhere ever, are eligible for up to $100,000 loaned at 0% interest for a 40 year term!
So, we think, unless we're missing some caveat somewhere (like, does the DALP wreck our credit score for the rest of the loan?), that might help ease us into the heretofore unimaginable privilege of being nearly $500,000 in debt for some 540 sq. ft. With no parking.
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On Andre Cassagnes, 1926 - 2013
Small edit: he made it to 2013.
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On Incredible Art Gifts For The Holiday Season (That Don't Yet Exist)
Crossing the eyes a bit, to overlap the Fruit Freshetta images, really helps one appreciate the mastery of the fruit arrangement. That may also apply to the Reviewer of Light series, as a whole, but looking at the fruit, it's apparent the ”leg” banana should be a bit past ripe, and I'm not sure how to work that into a metaphor for what a delight the year of Reviews has been. Thanks, Drew.
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On Is Barack Obama Still America's Cool Uncle?
Yay, fun... Khamenei for KhaMeshuggas, Idi Amin for Idiomits, A Ceaușescu for ChumpsLikeYou!...
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On How To Make 17th-Century Delights: Curd Cakes
I don't know how it might affect your enjoyment of the final recipe, but here's an excellent opportunity to experiment in making your own curds, as (I think), Sarah Jackson hints at in her recipe, above, and as might likely have been the typical 17th century case, more so than popping into the grocer for some fromage blanc: we heat a half gallon of milk on the stove, just to the point (or, better, before the point) where it begins to boil, then remove from the heat immediately (before it froths over!), and stir in a quart of buttermilk (or, instead, a quarter cup or so of lemon juice), adding and stirring until you see the milk separating into...curds! It's like it's... curdling, or something! Then, like Sarah writes, strain it through some cheesecloth, which gets its name from people's habit of straining cheese curds with it, and you end up with not only curds, but also, collected in a pot below the cloth, some delicious whey, excellent for some protein-rich gin and lemonade!
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On Word Mispronounced
If there's no hyphen in mis-led, I'm sure I'm being mizzle'd.
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On Shaving: What's It All About?
Is everyone feeling especially fuzzy this week? Between this here, and Sean Bonner extolling the straight razor over on BB, y'all be like the net's retro-futurist response to TV's Andre 3000/Adrien Brody/Gael Garcia Bernal Fusion ProGlide Styley front! I feel so inadequate nursing my hoard of Mach III cartridges...
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On What Androids May Or May Not Dream Of
The day fast approacheth when the liger shall lay down with the transgenic lamb.