There should be more of this sort of thing going on.
[Via the Daily Wh.at]
Hell freezes over. Seventh Generation, a company that sells eco-friendly products, will be joining forces with Walmart. CEO Jeffrey Hollender had previously stated that "hell would freeze over" before his company began selling their products in Walmart stores. But he seems to have had a change of heart, as Seventh Generation laundry detergent, dish soap, all-purpose sprays, and disinfectant wipes will be sold in about 1,500 Walmarts starting next month. [Consumer Reports Home & Garden]
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Tube popsicles are a summer staple but they aren't particularly healthy. If you want the fun of a tube popsicle with less dye and sugar, you can make your own healthy version with a vacuum sealer.
Home and culinary blog The Kitchn has been experimenting with making homemade tube popsicles using a vacuum sealer. The results are impressive and ripe as a platform to create healthier—and tastier!—frozen fruit tube popsicles. If you can purée it, you should be able to make it into a popsicle.
You'll need a vacuum sealer, scissors, straws, and of course the vacuum seal bags. While the instructions look lengthy they assure us that the process is actually quite short, although they recommend having a friend on hand to make filling the tubes easier. Visit the link below to check out the entire process from start to finish. Have a great idea for a popsicle mix or another neat hack for keeping cool? Let's hear about it in the comments.
In 1949 Cambridge added a bronze plaque to the granite monument showing Washington on horseback reviewing ranks of troops. The sculptor was Leonard Craske, who also created the Gloucester Fisherman's Memorial.GENERAL GEORGE WASHINGTONWe know from Gen. Nathanael Greene's 4 July letter that on that day Washington did look at some Rhode Island troops and was pleased. "Having taken command" separates this scene from whatever earlier moment Gen. Artemas Ward turned over authority. "Near this spot" is vague enough to apply to anything in central Cambridge, if not the whole town. And there's no mention of a tree.
having taken command of
the army of the United Colonies
at Cambridge
inspects the troops near this spot
on the fourth day of July 1775.
Behold an audience's reaction to the mention of M. Night Shyamalan's name in a trailer for the horror movie "Devil." The director apparently gets a "story" credit in the film and is, of course, the film's producer. UPDATE: NBC Universal blocked the video, so we'll describe it for you. Someone is taping a trailer for a horror movie with a camcorder. The usual audience noises are audible. When the credits switch to "From the mind of M. Night Shyamalan" the audience spontaneously groans, as if in pain.
His recent movie, "The Last Airbender" has not been what you'd call a huge commercial and critical success.
In two weeks of release, the $150 million movie has dropped from second place to seventh. It lost more than half its audience in the first week. By comparison, Toy Story 3, which has been in theaters two weeks longer than Airbender, continues to beat it in total revenue and per-screen revenue.
And then there was "The Happening" (in which nothing happened), and before that, "Lady in the Water," which was described by a film critic as "someone pouring petrol over their heads and setting fire to themselves."
So the question is: Why, if this is the reaction audiences have to M. Night, do they continue to advertise him prominently?
Whether you want to increase the number of plants you already have or expand your garden or window box collection using plants from a friend's garden, this easy technique will help you turn one plant into many.
How can you turn one plant into many? Most plants will send out new roots from sections cut away from the plant—known as cuttings. You snip a nice meaty piece of a mint plant, put it in a bud vase or a narrow water glass and within a week it'll be sending out roots to replant/regenerate itself. Take the new root-bearing cutting, plant it, and you've got a brand new plant.
At the home and garden site Re-Nest they've put together a guide for turning cuttings into new plants that covers trimming them, soaking and potting them, and what to look out for when taking cuttings from different kinds of plants. Although the technique is as straight forward as it sounds there are some helpful tips and tricks—like which herbs are best started in water and which are best started in soil. Check out the full guide at the link below or sound off in the comments with your experiences turning plant cuttings into healthy plants.
Web tool Garden Pest Detective helps you hunt down possible culprits damaging vegetables in your garden. Pick the vegetable, select the kind of damage you're seeing, and the Pest Detective highlights what could be causing it, from plant pests to diseases.
The handy part about the tool, apart from the obvious, is that it also provides images and descriptions to help you figure out if the possible pest or disease matches up to the problems you're having. Let's say, for example, I notice that the leaves of my basil are damaged. I select basil, tick the checkbox next to leaves, and see five possible pests and five possible diseases that might be to blame. When I hover over "aphid", I see a picture of what aphid damage looks like and a description of what aphids look like. Thanks elbb!
Whether you're new to gardening or you'd like a nice reminder system, SproutRobot will build a custom planting schedule based on your zip code so you always know what to plant and when.
Plug in your zip code to SproutRobot and it will generate a sample planting guide for the next few months. If you like what you see you can sign up for their tiered service. The free tier entails automatic emails at the appropriate planting times for your garden crops, you take care of purchasing the seeds. The SproutRobot Plus system ranged from $19.99 to $59.99 per year and entails a hand-checked planting calendar along with a variety of seeds for your planting schedule and climate.
While you're considering their suggested planting list against the space you have you'll want to check out how to pick high-return vegetables and our guide to keeping your garden pest-free without harsh chemicals. Have a favorite garden resource to share? Let's hear about it in the comments.
You're guaranteed to get a mosquito bite this summer, no matter how diligent you are. If the itching is more than you can stand and you don't have itch cream on hand, check your drawers for nail polish or Scotch tape.
Earlier today, Reader Michael McElrath wrote in to sing the praises of Scotch tape as a mosquito bite itch reliever. We've heard in the past that both Scotch tape and nail polish can work wonders to relieve an itchy bug bite, and while we've still been unable to find any solid non-anecdotal evidence as to why, the predominant theory seems to be that sealing the bite off from the air can make a big difference.
If that's the case, a solid coat of nail polish is probably the better option if you've got a choice. Alternatively, Twitter user Lemcott and Floridian offers this as an explanation:
The itch is actually caused by blood rushing to fill in the small entrance, but not be able to due to the proteins the mosquito used as an anti-clotting device. Thus it inflames, and the blood pressure sets off the nerve endings. Tape/nail polish actually keep the area around the entrance more stable, letting it heal faster/ become less inflamed. Scratching also only irritates the area further, meaning a longer heal time = more itching.
If you can drop a little science or just more anecdotal claims on this (or refute it completely), let's hear your expertise in the comments. Photo by James Jordan.
Submitted by: master baiter via Submit a Kludge!
At least they aren't trying to have more fun than a barrel of monkeys. – Ms. Fix-It
UPDATE: Kludge courtesy of Red Green
That stink coming from your medicine cabinet may just be Tylenol, Motrin or Benadryl, according to the latest recall from Johnson & Johnson. The company is recalling 21 additional lots of drugs, including batches of Tylenol, Children's Tylenol, Benadryl and Motrin. The company says "the risk of adverse medical events is remote."
The recall is the latest in a series going back to November of last year, related to wooden pallets that contained the chemical 2,4,6-tribromoanisole. According to J&J:
These lots are being added to the list of recalled products as a precautionary measure after a continuing internal review determined that some packaging materials used in the lots had been shipped and stored on the same type of wooden pallet that was tied to the presence of TBA in earlier recalled lots. All lots involved in the recall were produced before the January 15, 2010 recall, after which McNeil stopped accepting shipments of materials from its suppliers on that type of pallet.
Critics say Johnson & Johnson should be providing more specific information, including the number of bottles of pills included in the recall. Scott Wolfson, a spokesman for the Consumer Product Safety Commission said, "We feel it is critically important for recalling companies to include the number of affected units so it gives the consumer a sense of scope, of importance." However, a spokesperson for the Food & Drug Administration, which oversees pharmaceutical recalls, countered that "sometimes it takes a while to get the actual number from the company."
McNeil Consumer Healthcare Announces Voluntary Recall of Certain Over-The-Counter (OTC) Products in the United States, Fiji, Guatemala, Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, Trinidad & Tobago, and Jamaica [Official Announcement]
Recall of Pills Fails to Give Number of Bottles [NYTimes.com]
The latest innovation in sandwich technology is the Candwich, the sandwich in a can.
The foodstuff is sold inside a 3oz pop-top can and comes in three delicious flavors: PBJ Strawberry, PBJ Grape, and BBQ Chicken. Thankfully, only the first two have candy surprises inside.
Its makers, Mark One Foods, hope to go into production later this year, maybe after its inventor clears up that whole nasty SEC lawsuit that alleges he took investors money intended for real estate investments and put it in canned sandwiches instead.
Candwich [Mark One Foods]
Money in the Bank? No, Sandwich in a Can [NYT]
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