快 - kuài (Literally 'fast bamboo") - or Chopstick

Chinese food is usually communal and not individually served. So, there needs to be two pairs of chopsticks. Which pair to use? Well, the steel pair is for your personal use, ie put food into your mouth. The black pair it to take food from the main plates to your own plate or bowl

Since chopsticks are so often used in many dishes, the correct usage is essential! The most common "rules" of chopstick usage are as follows:

• Always grab chopsticks in the middle, make sure the ends are even.
• Chopsticks are held in the right hand only, even for left-handed people.
• Chopsticks are not used to move bowls or plates.
• Chopsticks are not used to toy with one's food or dishes in common.
• When not in use, chopsticks must always be placed neatly on the table, both chopsticks lying tidily next to each other at both ends. Failure to do so is evocative of the way the dead would be placed in a coffin before a funeral.
• Treat chopsticks as an extension of your fingers and do not point at other people or wave themaround.
• Do not suck the ends of chopsticks.
• Do not use chopsticks to move dishes.
• Do not pierce food with chopsticks; they are not forks.
• Do not point chopsticks at another person-this is considered an insult.
• Do not bang chopsticks like you're beating on a drum, this implies that you're a beggar.
• Do not stick chopsticks vertically in a bowl of rice, this implies that this is food for the dead.

THE MEAL FOR A KING!

Underpass .. Overpass ..

Clever way of diverting streams and ice melt over road. Franz Joseph Pass South Island New Zealand.

Nuclear tips .......

 With kitchen space a minimum in small, cool homes, many are debating even keeping their microwaves. But we think that you ought to first realize just what a multi-functional appliance your microwave is before you decide to Freecycle it. Inside, we'll show you 12 cool things to do with your microwave besides nuking that ramen dinner.

• Dry herbs in the microwave (pictured above). If you buy fresh cilantro or grow your own basil, you can use your microwave to dry out herbs . Drying allows you to store unused portions or dry up a small amount for an extra-tasty spice rub!
• Sterilize garden soil to make it fit to plant seedlings. Spread 400g soil on a flat dish and heat on high for 90 seconds or until steaming.
• Soften Brown Sugar. Keep the sugar in its plastic packaging, add a few drops of water, and heat on medium for 10 to 20 seconds.
• Make extra-tasty microwave popcorn by nuking a bowl of water first. Do a quick switcheroo and then cook the popcorn as directed. The moisture left in the microwave will make for some fluffier kernels.

• Disinfect sponges in the microwave. After you've given your sponge a good soak in water, nuke it for 2 minutes to kill 99 percent of bacteria.
• Disinfect plastic cutting boards (if they fit!). Wash the board well, rub it with the cut side of a lemon, then heat for 1 minute.
• Prepare your cutting board oil. Serious cooks who oil down their wooden cutting boards will benefit by zapping the oil for a spell first.
• Get extra life out of a dried-up mascara stick by heating for 30-40 seconds on high with a cup of water in the microwave beside it.

• Get more juice from a lemon or lime. Just zap it in the microwave for 20 seconds and then roll it around on the counter a few times.
• Bring solidified honey back to life. Crystallized honey is brought back to liquid life by uncovering the jar and heating on medium power for 30 seconds to 1 minute.
• Cook unexpected foods. You know your microwave can cook frozen burritos, but you can also make more impressive dishes with your counter top tech. Try making no-fry potato chips, in-the-husk corn-on-the-cob, or even scrambled eggs if you're in a pinch. You can also use a microwave to cut down on dough-proofing time if you're making homemade bread.
• Serve your delicious meals on warmed plates for pro-worthy presentation. Sprinkle each one with water and pile them up. Heat on high for around 30 seconds—but make sure they don't have any metal decorations.

Decomposing plastic bags was easy!

We’ve all heard the plastic bag horror stories—the billions of bags discarded every year that wind up polluting oceans, killing wildlife and getting dumped in landfills where they take up to 1,000 years to decompose. Researchers have been wracking their brains for years to figure out a solution. But leave it to a Canadian high school student to leave them all in the dust. Daniel Burd, an 11th grader at Waterloo Collegiate Institute, has discovered a way to make plastic bags degrade in as little as three months—a finding that won him first prize at the Canada-Wide Science Fair, a $20,000 scholarship, and a chance to revolutionize a major environmental issue.

Burd’s strategy was simple: Since plastic does eventually degrade, it must be eaten by microorganisms. If those microorganisms, as well as the optimal conditions for their growth, could be identified, we could put them to work eating the plastic much faster than under normal conditions.

With this goal in mind, he ground plastic bags into a powder and concocted a solution of household chemicals, yeast and tap water to encourage microbe growth. Then he added the plastic powder and let the microbes work their magic for three months. Finally, he tested the resulting bacterial culture on plastic bags, exposing one plastic sample to dead bacteria as a control.

Sure enough, the plastic exposed to the live bacteria was 17 percent lighter than the control after six weeks. Once Burd examined the most effective strains of bacteria, he was able to isolate two types—Sphingomonas and Pseudomonas—as the plastic munchers. At 37 degrees and optimal bacterial concentration, the microbes had consumed 43 percent of a plastic sample within six weeks.

Jumping weather!

Watching DL get grass stains on his arse at the Canberra Mint.

Night creatures

OMG!

Spirolaterals

jesus H Christ!

Imagine you have a little robot that holds a pencil. Set it down on a sheet of paper and give it these instructions:

1. Move forward 3 units and turn right.
2. Move forward 1 unit and turn right.
3. Move forward 2 units and turn left.
4. Move forward 1 unit and turn left.
5. Move forward 2 units and turn right.
6. Repeat.

If the robot makes its turns at 90° angles, it will produce this figure:

But, remarkably, if it turns at 120° it will draw this:

Woman Suing Google

Sure, we all rely on technology, but remember that thing called common sense? Yeah, that’s not obsolete yet.

As originally reported by Search Engine Land, Lauren Rosenberg of Los Angeles filed a lawsuit against Google after she followed some pedestrian directions from Google Maps that told her to take a stroll down a rural highway that had no sidewalks or pedestrian paths.

Seems unwise, right? But despite these warning signs, it seems Rosenberg put all her faith in Google and took the highway anyway. Unsurprisingly for the rest of us, she was hit by a car. And even lessshockingly in this litigious world, Rosenberg is now suing Google and the driver of the car that struck her for the costs of medical treatment ($100,000) and punitive damages

Miniture

That guy.........

Have you ever been watching TV or a movie and pointed to the screen and said, "Hey! It's That Guy!"?   Well, here is where you'll find him.   This page is dedicated to the character actors collectively known as "That Guy". That Guy is easy to recognize and difficult to place.   You can describe him but not name him. If someone asks, "Do you know the old grubby guy with a big belly and wild white hair that always wears a beat up brown derby and plays a drunk in westerns?"   You'll know exactly who they mean, but you'll have no idea that his name is Dub Taylor. Here's the lineup (filmography links and data courtesy of The Internet Movie Database):
Ed Lauter	Ronny Cox	Charles Napier	Nehemiah Persoff	Woodrow Parfrey
Simon Oakland	Elisha Cook Jr.	Paul Dooley	Logan Ramsey	James Rebhorn
Royal Dano	Charles Tyner	Bert Freed	Donald Moffat	John Randolph
Robert Costanzo	Fritz Weaver	James Cromwell	John Dehner	John Doucette
Jack Gilford	Mako	Henry Jones	Mark Margolis	John McGiver
Richard Jaeckel	Andrew Duggan	John Anderson	L. Q. Jones	Leo Gordon
Marc Lawrence	Frank Vincent	William Smith	Al Ruscio	Giovanni Ribisi
Murray Hamilton	Seymour Cassel	Whit Bissell	Bob Hastings	Henry Silva
Bill McKinney	Michael Ironside	Milton Selzer	Michael Ansara	Vito Scotti
Don Stroud	Clint Howard	Dub Taylor	Henry Beckman	Edward Andrews
James Hong	Clancy Brown	John Saxon	M. Emmet Walsh	Jeff Corey
Bob Gunton	Vincent Schiavelli	Brion James	Curtis Armstrong	Robert Webber
Fred Clark	Anthony Caruso	Robert.J. Wilke	Ross Elliott	Anthony Zerbe
Pat Hingle	Ken Lynch	William Schallert	Peter Mark Richman	Eugene Roche
John Polito	Bruce McGill	Austin Pendleton	Chris Cooper	Maury Chaykin
Richard Libertini	Kenneth Tobey	Christopher McDonald	Michael V. Gazzo	Jack Elam
Richard Herd	Richard Edson	Luis Guzman	Harris Yulin	Burton Gilliam
Dick O'Neill	Paul Gleason	Kevin Tighe	Mike Starr	Michael Lerner
Harold Stone	James Tolkan	Monte Markham	Dan Hedaya	Warren Stevens
John Crawford	Charles Aidman	Michael Rooker	Louis Lombardi	Saul Rubinek
Paul Stewart	J T Walsh	Fred Ward	Edward Hermann	Barry Sullivan
Herb Vigran	Mickey Jones	Sam Elliott	Danny Trejo	Peter Jason
Jorge Martinez De Hoyos	Hugh Marlowe	Roscoe Lee Brown	Ben Johnson	Jonathan Banks
Robert Davi	Joe Viterelli	George Tobias	Al Leoug	Billy Drago
John Mitchum	Frank Overton	Richard X. Slattery	Billy Barty	Michael J. Pollard
Ray Wise	Frank Sivero	John Diehl	Matt Frewer	Bruce MacVittie