Where is this?

Answer here this time tomorrow.

Microwave Hack I Just Discovered After Many Decades

How is it that only last night, while thawing out a slice of wonderful super-dense Danish bread, did the penny drop such that I realized that I've been taking an unnecessary extra step all these years when using microwave ovens to thaw frozen things that require me to guesstimate how long I need to nuke them.

Simple hack short: Instead of hitting the STOP button, open the microwave's door — this stops the machine and opens the door with one gesture rather than two.

Doh!

Lagniappe: it's much easier to locate the large OPEN button — which is also outlined by its placement at the bottom of the front control panel — in the dark than have to guess at the whereabouts of the often flush and embedded small STOP button.

Two loaves of sliced Rugbrod Danish Grain Bread (top) cost $25.49.

VALIS v VANTA: 2 STRANGE ACRONYMS ENTER — NONE LEAVE

Everyone who's read Philip K. Dick's great 1981 novel "VALIS" knows that the title is an acronym for Vast Active Living Intelligence System.

Just kidding.

Nobody remembers that.

Likewise, the few who've read Sam Abughali's "VANTA," published last month (on April 13, for those who insist on more precision), will recall that it stands for Virtual Adaptive Neural Transfer Array.

Doesn't matter.

What does matter is the bizarro concordance between Abughali's novel and the name of my beloved calico cat, VANTA.

I mean, come on: I named my cat in September 2022 after adopting her as a three-month old kitten from an animal shelter.

I chose the name because of my fascination with Vantablack.

But I digress.

Who knows how long the author of "VANTA" was working on his novel, and when he named his time machine VANTA?

What matters is that he did.

Our lives intersected then and there, or at least they were on track to do so.

I've long contended that coincidence is a glimpse of the scaffolding of reality.

This latest incident has done nothing to alter that belief.

Easy peasy way to untie a knot

I uploaded this hack to YouTube three years ago and every now and then someone thanks me for it.

Makes my day!

Theatrical Releases You Can Stream or Rent at Home

Finally.

An excellent addition to my video toolkit.

Many of the 35 titles currently listed are on various watchlists I maintain across the zillion streaming services.

This IMDB page updates and merges them: "Modified 2 days ago."

BeyondTheMedspeak: The Dirty Little Secret Behind [So-Called] Evidence-Based Medicine

Since forever I've been reading seemingly authoritative papers and articles from the Cochrane Reviews et al lauding "Evidence-Based Medicine" as the gold standard for evaluating treatments/drugs/testing etc.

There's only one problem with these: they're often authored by people who've never gotten their hands dirty, as it were, doing basic science — whether it be laboratory-based or clinical — that's reported in the scientific literature.

These grand panjandrums haven't a clue how shot through with arbitrary choices and decisions are the final data reported by the scientists writing the articles.

I know this for a fact because I was one of those scientists for many years, publishing dozens of papers in the premier journals of anesthesiology over decades.

You could look it up.

But I digress.

The "sausage," as it were — the raw data which form the basis of all such papers — gets cleaned up by necessity, because it's a hot mess in its initial state as individual data points.

But in the end the data reported are not objective but, rather, subjective, choices: there's far too much noise to generate a signal without processing.

Wait a sec — what's that song I'm hearing?

The Listening Museum

From the website: "36 mechanical keyboards and switches, curated and sound-mapped. From IBM Model M (1985) to Topre to thocky modern customs. Click any card, type on your real keyboard, hear it as if it were on your desk."

Fair warning: there goes the day.

Wait a sec — what's that song I'm hearing?

In Praise of Australian-Based Thrillers

Watching "The Code" last night, I was struck by the barren magnificence of the Australian terrain in which most of the 2014 six-part espionage thriller (Season 1; six-part Season 2 aired in 2016) is set.

As I thought about it, the superb six-part 2016 political thriller "Secret City" came to mind: it too was set in Australia.

Though not a spy thriller, "The Dry" — an excellent 2020 mystery thriller also set in Australia — takes us out back as does its equally gripping 2024 sequel, "Force of Nature: The Dry 2."

Then there's Taron Egerton's unforgettable crazed character in pursuit of the great Charlize Theron's solo hiker in the Outback in "Apex," just released on Netflix.

Note: "The Code" Season 1 is available on Prime Video; Season 2 is on YouTube

'Yonder' — Lisa Russ Spaar

 

Saturday afternoon at the movies: 'They Live'

YouTube description:

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Master of fright, John Carpenter directs this entertaining and darkly humorous 1988 horror film.

Roddy Piper plays Nada, a down-on-his-luck construction worker who stumbles upon a special pair of sunglasses that reveal an awesome global secret — the ruling elite of the world are actually aliens in disguise, their aim being to keep humans in a state of mindless consumerism. 

Wearing the glasses, Nada is able to see the secret messages behind all advertising, and he is capable of discerning which normal-looking people are in fact ugly aliens in charge of the campaign to keep humans subdued.

Now, the battle is on to free the human race from this secret, subliminal tyranny! 

Good fun filled with genuine chills and scares and a bitingly satirical assault on our consumer culture, "They Live" is one of Carpenter's finest achievements.

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Free, the way we like it.

Wait a sec — what's that song I'm hearing?

'What Makes a Hacker' — Steve Wozniak

Here are the Woz's defining characteristics of a hacker, from his July 11, 2004 keynote address at the Fifth HOPE (Hackers On Planet Earth) gathering in New York City:

• A sense of humor

• The ability to derive pleasure from jokes and the unexpected

• A tendency to strive for internal rather than external rewards

This just goes to show that being a hacker need not require great computer skills: in fact, you don't need any!

In Woz's hacker world there's plenty of room for a TechnoDolt©®™.

I've never met Steve Wozniak; I've never spoken with Steve Wozniak, though I have seen him on TV.

Way back in 2005 he did post a comment on bookofjoe — that was among the top 10 things that happened to me in 2005.

Maybe top 3.

Primal Space — Ewan Cunningham

From Dense Discovery:

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Scottish creator Ewan Cunningham's Primal Space started as a hobby in 2018 and has grown into one of YouTube's most compelling sci-edu channels.

A meticulously animated archive of engineering, science, and history stories.

Videos mostly come in under 10 minutes and pack in a density of fascinating, well-structured storytelling that makes it very easy to fall down a rabbit hole.

Experts' Experts: Scotch Whisky

I'm not a Scotch whisky drinker: I've had perhaps 10 such drinks in my entire life.

Nevertheless, the subject has always interested me, and so when I happened on "Scotch: A Golden Dream" on Apple TV, I watched it.

Fascinating.

The documentary ambles along interviewing master distillers, "noses," writers, and workers in various areas of Scotch production, along with Scottish farmers who grow the barley, wheat, and rye that form the basis of Scotch.

Here are the most useful and interesting — sometimes surprising — things I learned from the film:

• Most experts prefer younger whisky — 6-10 years old, perhaps up to 18 — to much older vintages. They find the sweetness of the young oak barrels preferable to the dominating power of older wood. 

• Nosing whisky in a glass will tell you far more about it than tasting it.

• If you're nosing a flight or series of Scotch whiskies, you will find that without added water, the nose and sense of smell become slightly anesthetized by the 40% alcohol in bottled Scotch.

• In Scotland water is always added to single malt whisky: it dilutes the alcohol, reducing the burn and allowing other properties to reveal themselves.

• On a molecular level, aroma molecules share more chemical likenesses with alcohol than they do with water. As such, they tend to bind with alcohol. Adding water frees up more of the aroma molecules to evaporate into the taster's nose. Appreciation of flavors happens at least as much in the nose as on the tongue.

• Two teaspoons of water in 1.5 oz. of Scotch are the sweet spot for most.

• Older Scotch is rarer because most of it is bottled young. Then more is lost by evaporation, the so-called "angels' share." Thus, you're paying more for its scarcity. 

• Older Scotch, aged 20/30/40 or more years, may have taken up too much flavor from the aging barrels; thus it might be dry, bitter, or woody as a result of being overaged.

FunFact: the director of "Scotch: The Golden Dream" is... wait for it... Andrew Peat.

You could look it up.

Magnetic Paint — Make Any Wall or Surface Magnetic

Steel yourself.

From websites:

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Magnetize-It! magnetic paint & primer is a grey acrylic latex water-based paint that turns any wall into a magnet-receptive surface.

Apply top coat of any color without lessening magnetic function.

A great alternative to cluttered refrigerators, ugly pushpin holes, and tape marks.

Useful for:

• School classrooms

• Home workshop

• Planning board

• Bulletin board

• Art projects

• Dorm room

• Photo walls

• Work walls

• Play areas

• Office

• Gym

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Half-quart (16 oz.): $14.93.

Treasures of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City — in 3D

[Armor of Henry II, King of France (reigned 1547-1559)]

From Colossal: "In the age of the internet, we're fortunate to have virtual access to museum collections around the world, thanks to objects in the public domain and programs like the Metropolitan Museum of Art's Open Access Initiative. Thanks to the Met's continued emphasis on imaging, we can now experience every detail in 3-D renderings of over 140 significant objects in its holdings."

Helpful Hints from joe-eeze: How to stir

We don't need no education.

Robert L. Wolke, the Washington Post's longtime "Food 101" columnist, addressed this topic.

Q. I've been told you should always stir with a spoon's rounded side down, rather than holding the spoon vertically. Is this true? If so, why?

A. If the spoon is large and held vertically, vigorous stirring might slop some liquid over the rim and out of the pot. But if the spoon is held horizontally with the curve down, it will sail smoothly through the liquid, creating a whirlpool effect that enhances efficient mixing.

[photo via Julie Appleton]

'Rams' : Documentary Streams Free Until 12 Noon EST Today

I only happened on this news last evening which is why I'm posting it with such short notice.

Nevertheless, this documentary about one of the greatest designers of the 20th century will play here for the next 4 hours.

Free, the way we like it.

Dieter Rams was 94 yesterday: "It's become a tradition that every year on his birthday we stream the documentary Rams free worldwide."

Don't want to watch it at work or can't get free during this morning's window?

Not to fret: you can buy/rent it on Apple TV for $14.99/$3.99.

Binge-Watching FTW

For the longest time I dutifully watched multiple-part series streaming on Apple TV/Prime Video/Netflix etc.

When I first encountered the term "binge-watching" it was in reference to peeps locking themselves in for a weekend to watch whole seasons of old favorites.

I noticed that each week's new multiple-part series episode required that I watch "Last week on XYZ" to remind myself exactly where it had left off.

But that got annoying over time — I wanted to get right to the new episode.

Besides which, as I'm getting older my memory's not nearly as good as it used to be: I've noticed myself more and more often watching a movie and then realizing part way through that I watched it years previously, though I can't go beyond that fact: I don't remember what happened in the movie, so it's like watching it for the first time in terms of enjoying it.

Likewise, a week's hiatus from a multi-episode series sometimes renders the previous episode a vague scrim.

I started waiting until a series had broadcast its final episode and only then started watching it from the beginning on a daily basis, making it more like a multi-part movie.

The more I did that, the more I liked it.

Now I wouldn't watch the old one-episode/week way.

I learned to look up how many episodes there would be in total, then I'd work backward from the final episode's air date, allowing for two episodes at a time.

Wikipedia is the quickest way to get this information, BTW.

So, for example, when I read earlier this year that "For All Mankind" Season 5 was all set to premiere  on March 27 on Apple TV, I calculated forward and noted that Episode 10/10 would air Friday, May 29, 2026.

Working backward at two episodes/day, that meant that my binge-watching should begin next Monday, May 25, with episodes 1&2, to finish with 9&10 on Friday the 29th.

I've got my popcorn ready.

When Einstein Met Prince

'Apple: The First 50 Years' — Best book I've read* so far this year

Of course, as a longtime fanboi I'm already biased but never mind that.

*Published March 10, 2026, my copy arrived two days ago — May 7. (I'm writing this on May 9). 

It's 548 pages long, a big fat heavy tome. 

I'm on page 21.

I just invoked SlowRead©®™ because it's so good I want it to last a loooong time.

Hold on a sec, lemme do the math: 21 pages read over 3 days (May 7/8/9).

Let's see, that's 7 pages/day.

7 goes into 548 78 times.

Minus 3 days/21 pages in: that means at this rate I'll finish it 75 days from today = 10 weeks + 5 days = Thursday, July 23, 2026.

The Hidden Reason Screwdriver Handles Look Like This

Pruning Drop Cloth

I like it.

From the very finest horticultural engineers on the planet comes this not earthshaking but, rather, ground–protecting breakthrough.

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From websites:

It's Like Taking Your Plants to a Barber

It's nearly impossible to pick up all those clippings that result from trimming your hedges and pruning your shrubs.

You have to rake — which is time-consuming and can damage ground cover — and you never get it all.

With the Pruning Drop Cloth, you can protect your costly ground cover, mulch, topsoil, etc., and eliminate tedious cleanup.

It's akin to how your barber or hair stylist protects your clothing from your hair clippings.

Just wrap the large 7 ft. x 7 ft. canvas cloth around your outdoor shrubs or indoor plants to catch trimmings, then fold and shake over a garden cart or trash can.

Canvas cloth edges are hemmed and stitched to last.

Makes cleanup a snap.

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Now, there are those of you out there — yes, you —  saying to yourselves, just a flippin' minute!

"I could do that with an old blanket or sheet or a piece of plastic."

You could.

The choice is yours, to paraphrase the guy in the classic Fram oil filter commercial: you can buy one here now or make your own later.

16.95.

Helpful Hints from joe-eeze: How to get the smell of cigarette smoke out of your hair

From Michelle Hainer, this Q&A which appeared in the Washington Post:

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Q. I was at a smoke-filled bar last night. This morning my hair still smells like an ashtray. How can I get rid of the smell before work?

A. Fabric softener sheets leave your laundry smelling fresh, and they'll do the same for your tresses, according to Norbert Ansellem, owner of Norbert Hair Designers in the District.

Simply run the sheet over your head to remove the offensive odor.

If you don't have one handy, a dusting of lavender baby powder will also temporarily mask the smell of smoke, says Lauren Bourland, a hair stylist at Toka Salon in downtown Washington. She recommends Johnson's Lavender & Chamomile Baby Powder.

To camouflage powder residue, follow up with a quick spritz of hair spray.

Experts' Expert: Cheese Management

From Cooks' Illustrated comes the following Q&A with Mary Keith, food and nutrition agent at the University of Florida Extension Service.

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How to Deal With Moldy Cheese

Q. Aside from cheese that contains cultivated mold [Cabrales, Gorgonzola, Roquefort, Stilton et al], is it safe to eat cheese that has grown mold as long as I first cut off the affected area?

A. According to Keith, hard cheeses can generally be salvaged, but soft cheeses cannot.

The toxins in the types of mold that grow on cheeses are mostly water–soluble, so they usually cannot travel far beyond the surface of harder cheeses with low moisture levels.

To remove surface mold from a hard cheese such as cheddar, the general rule is to cut off all visible mold as well as an inch of the surrounding area, being careful to keep the knife out of the mold itself to prevent cross–contamination of other areas of the cheese.

Of course, this works only if you have a big piece of cheese.

Small pieces on which the mold has grown on multiple sides should be discarded.

Soft cheeses such as goat cheese, Brie, or Camembert and wet, curd–like cheeses such as ricotta or cottage cheese should never be consumed once mold appears.

Because most of the toxins produced by these uncultivated molds are water–soluble, they can easily travel beneath the surface of these high–moisture cheeses and contaminate the rest of the product.

Cheeses that are injected with mold, such as blue cheeses [top], should be discarded once they start becoming slimy or softer than usual or exhibiting strange odors or colors.

My advice is never to buy more cheese than you can use in one or two weeks; the moister the cheese, the quicker it will spoil.

As for storing most leftover cheese, I have found that wrapping it in parchment paper and then in foil is the most effective method, but a sealed zipper–lock bag is a very close (and much easier) second.

Whichever method you choose, the cheese is best kept in the crisper drawer of the refrigerator.

One more thing: Freezing doesn't kill mold.

While freezing might slow down the mold's growth, it will not destroy any of the toxins the mold has already produced.

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I recall my introduction to soft cheese management, back when I was in college: I loved Camembert and Brie but after a couple days I'd notice a sharp ammonia smell when I opened the package: that was a sign that was obvious even to me.

What is it?

Peeps be asking what happened to this long-time feature?

Your wish is my demand.

Hint: Bigger than a bread box (when properly deployed as pictured above).

Another: No moving parts.

Answer here this time tomorrow.