As I was reading the discussion this morning about jars that are hard to open, I thought it could be fun to have a thread where we share some of the tricks that make life easier. And then I got email this morning telling me that xylitol is now being marketed as “birch sugar”.
I’m sure you guys all know that Xylitol is extremely dangerous, and even life-threatening, to dogs. It’s in peanut butter and some ice cream and other things one might be tempted to give a dog.
Xylitol is extremely toxic to dogs. Even small amounts of xylitol can cause hypoglycemia (low blood sugar), seizures, liver failure, or even death. Cats, ferrets, and horses do not appear to be at risk from ingestion of xylitol.
So then I thought, hey, let’s combine tricks of the trade and some fun (and possibly not so fun) facts that all of us may not know.
trollhattan
So, horses can chew anti-cavity gum?
Tip: before installing a wood screw, rub it against a candle or soap bar. Goes in much more easily.
Dorothy A. Winsor
Upper case and lower case letters are so named because when type was handset, printers used to keep the capital letters in the top case and the small letters in the bottom one.
Kristine
@Dorothy A. Winsor: Cool. Fact.
WTFGhost
Rescue breathing is no longer considered part of CPR; chest compressions alone will cycle air in the lungs, if the airway is clear. You did check and clear the airway, right? Well, the pressure of the lungs increases when you push down, so, a clear airway moves air out; when you alleviate the pressure, the negative pressure cycles air through the lungs.
More importantly, if you have a good, solid, lungful of air, that will last you many heartbeats, but too few CPR-beats means the air is going to waste, since blood isn’t circulating.
Note that CPR is only indicated when there’s no heartbeat. Don’t start beating on a drowning victim’s chest until you’ve given them a chance to vomit up water!
WaterGirl
@Dorothy A. Winsor: How funny, that is cool.
Kristine
When I absolutely cannot open a jar, I stick the pointy end of a bottle opener between the rim of the lid and the jar and pry, pulling the edge of the lid away ever so slightly. I don’t even have to break the vacuum. It’s usually enough to enable me to open the blasted thing.
Back in school, balky reagent jars got the cap ends inserted between the hinge side of the door and the jamb. Pull door closed to fix jar in place, but gently because it’s really easy to shatter the usually plastic cap. Twist.
Carlo Graziani
@trollhattan: Nice tip.
Also, it took me years to figure out that a pilot hole diameter should be just shy of the screw diameter. A caliper to measure the thread groove diameter is a perfect way to select a drill bit.
Barbara
@Kristine: I take a knife with a heavy handle and bang the handle on the side of the lid a few times. It works most of the time.
When I want juice from a citrus fruit I put it in the microwave for a minute.
Chief Oshkosh
@Carlo Graziani: Really? I usually just hit the screw harder if the hole is too small.
Ohio Mom
WTFGhost triggered me remembering this piece of trivia:
Henry Heimlich, popularizer of the Heimlich maneuver for people choking on chunks of food, was the son-in-law of Arthur Murray.
That’s your daily dose of CincInnati history.
Carlo Graziani
@Kristine: Another jar opening trick: put a rubber band around the edge of the cap. I find that 90% of the time an impossible jar opening yields to this trick.
The reason it works is that everyone’s arm can generate sufficient torque to open just about any jar. But not everyone’s hand can grip a lid firmly enough to apply that torque without slipping. The rubber band incresaes the static friction between fingers and lid, reducing the required gripping strength.
bbleh
Flexitol (Aussie foot-crack cream) for finger cracks in winter. A lifesaver.
@Chief Oshkosh: also loud cursing
Another Scott
@Kristine: Glass jars of spaghetti sauce (e.g. Trader Joe’s Marinara) have been tough for me to open for far too long. For a while, I tried all the usual tricks (heating up the lid with hot water under the tap, etc., etc.) without much success.
I finally just gave up since I knew I would be using all the sauce in a recipe and not reusing the jar or lid.
I simply (carefully!!) stab the lid with a fairly sharp (old) knife. It pokes a small hole in the lid, releases the vacuum, and the lid is very easy to remove afterwards.
No stress, no strain, no fancy tools or levers required.
Best wishes,
Scott.
Kristine
@Barbara:
I need to remember this, with limes especially.
Miss Bianca
@WTFGhost: Well, akshually…yes, you *can* do chest-only CPR, but the instructors in the CPR class I just took to get recertified said it wasn’t optimal. Still, if you don’t have your handy pocket mask actually handy, they said chest-only was obviously better than nothing at all.
But didja know that there’s new protocol for infant CPR – no longer the “finger depression” method, where you press on the infant chest with your fingers, but instead encircling the body with your hands and using your thumbs to do the chest compressions.
Barbara
@Kristine: Yes, especially with limes. You need to calibrate the time based on size and number so they don’t explode.
Kristine
@Carlo Graziani:
Something else to remember.
I save the nice, wide rubber bands stores use to bind raw broccoli stalks etc. They’d be perfect for this.
Kristine
@Barbara: I gather we’re talking way less than a minute?
I do use a plate cover whenever I microwave because things you don’t think will splatter/explode do in fact splatter/explode.
oldster
To avoid cross-threading jars, screws, bolts, anything with threads:
When you first apply the lid to the jar (or the nut to the bolt, or what have you), turn the lid *counter-clockwise*, as though you were trying to open it. The lid will ride upwards against your hand-pressure, until it drops off the end of the thread. When you feel that sharp drop, that’s when your threads are lined up correctly, and that is when you want to start turning clockwise. Your threads will be properly aligned, you won’t strip them or get them jammed, and you won’t get between the threads.
jonas
@Dorothy A. Winsor: Someone once told me that the expression “mind your p’s and q’s” also comes from the old world of typesetting. The letter sorts were set in the press form backwards, so the typesetter had to be careful not to accidentally reverse certain letters (I assume “mind your b’s and d’s” was equally valid).
I do know, though, that to be “out of sorts”, meaning to become desperate or confused, also came from typesetting when you were setting a page and you suddenly ran out of a letter you needed.
WTFGhost
@Miss Bianca: It took me twenty years to unlearn “15/2” and now they wanna change it again. Sigh.
Carlo Graziani
Also, for an actual jar-opening tool, OXO has a nice one.
Chetan Murthy
@Barbara:
huh. I was told once to use the back of the blade, whack a few times
SiubhanDuinne
I rarely use the BJ pie filter to hide annoying commenters. Instead, I use it when there’s a really interesting, thoughtful, even profound discussion going on. I’ll flag the originator of the conversation — that way, all responses to them are also “pied.” Makes it easy to track a fast-moving discussion.
I’ve also been known to pie myself when I pose a question or comment and want to make sure I don’t miss any responses. Easy enough to go back in and click things back to normal once the thread’s expired
Pieing. It isn’t just for shunning any more.
Just look at that parking lot
A few years back when we got our bird feeder, we were getting moths in the cabinet where the bird seed was kept. Didn’t know about moth larvae in the seed. Now the seed goes into the freezer for a few days before it’s put the container. No more moths.
A Ghost to Most
Yeah, that setup isn’t even sporting.
Carlo Graziani
@SiubhanDuinne: McGyver Award.
Baud
@SiubhanDuinne:
Whoa.
Barbara
@Kristine: one lime is 30 seconds and three limes is a minute, but it might be less if you have a high powered microwave. Mine is medium.
WaterGirl
@bbleh: When I was growing up my parents owned a tavern so his hands were in and out of the water all day long using the washing brushes on the glasses. He had the problem with cracked skin.
Looks like the product you mentioned comes in a cream and a “balm”, which i guess is more greasy and less creamiy?
Barbara
@SiubhanDuinne: Dedication to purpose! I like it!
Gary K
@jonas: I like “that somone once told me.” I’m old enough to remember the print shop class we had in junior high school, in which among other things we learned how to set type from a California Job Case. And, yes, that b-d-p-q business was confusing. Even if you knew the correct cell from which to draw the piece of type, you still had to check it carefully, because it might have been sorted into that cell incorrectly. Unlike wood shop and metal shop, I enjoyed print shop. We also learned woodblock and silkscreen printing. The boys were required to take shop every year, while the girls were doing home ec. What a waste, I’ve never wanted to make anything out of metal but wish I were a better cook.
WaterGirl
@Kristine: Lemons and limes are way too often crappy these days. Though I have had better luck with the seedless lemons.
Have you noticed that about lemons and limes in the past year or so?
WaterGirl
@Miss Bianca: I took a first aid class once and the day after we learned CPR a girl in the class told us that her dad had a heart attack right in front of her the night before, and she saved her life with the CPR she had just learned that day.
Yikes.
WaterGirl
@jonas:
That’s a really fun fact.
Percysowner
@Carlo Graziani:
I like this type of jar opener
WaterGirl
@SiubhanDuinne: So clever!
Scout211
Since we are continuing the jar opener tricks, I will add to my comment in the late night thread. I posted a comment about the Black snd Decker Lids Off electric jar opener that I love.
But typically, before I pull out the electric opener I use this gadget: Progressive 6-in-1 Multi Opener – Red
I have a drawer full of bottle and jar opening gadgets, but this is the one that I use every time. It leaves all the others in the dust. And they are definitely accumulating dust.
When it doesn’t do the job, I pull out the Lids Off electric opener.
WaterGirl
@Carlo Graziani: I’m sorry, but did I miss the gum wrapper in that description from Subaru Diane?
:-)
bbleh
@WaterGirl: yes, the “heel balm” specifically. It’s thick, but it absorbs quickly. I guess it’s just another urea-based ointment, but it works wonders. (on feet too!)
Kristine
@WaterGirl: Cheaper limes are usually smaller and have no juice to speak of. Lemons have some juice, but not a lot. I’ve resigned myself to paying more and buying individual fruit instead of bags.
Garlic is the item that I’ve noticed seems to have gone downhill. For a while, everything I bought looked old and dried out and spoiled quickly. Then I saw that most of the places I shopped sold garlic imported from China, so who knows how long it took to get here. I try to find US-grown, but it’s not always easy.
Given that, I found a product on clearance in one store that I love: India’s Nature ginger-garlic paste. I even use it in recipes that don’t call for ginger—it adds a nice snap.
Tenar Arha
Anyone have tips for when you get a pill/bottle safety cap you can’t get open? I basically end up destroying the cap and substituting another bottle, but that’s not exactly safe for cleaning products. (And I don’t always have a spare bottle or jar).
Carlo Graziani
Learned recently: the expressions “to buy a pig in a poke” and “let the cat out of the bag” are related. They are the sequential vignettes that feature an incautious piglet purchaser who does not check what animal is in fact writhing in the bag before his vendor has hurried off.
oldster
Okay, as long as we are on trivia stemming from the old days of type-setting:
Setters used to work in pairs, with one of them pulling type from the “cases”, and the other reading the source-text, requesting letters, and then putting them into the frame in correct order.
If the setter wanted to spell “TEA”, they might ask for a T, an E, and an A. If they wanted to spell “TEA & Toast,” then would ask for a T, an E, an A, and so on.
But how do you ask for “&”? You can’t call it “and,” because you have been using the word “and” in asking for letters (“…give me an A and a T and another T….”).
So instead you ask for an “and, per se: &”. And this is the origin of the word “ampersand”.
bbleh
@trollhattan: re wood screws, if otoh you’re dealing with modern (crappy) construction and modern (REALLY crappy) drywall / sheetrock, I use a NARROW tack to create a start hole and then dip the screw in wood-glue before screwing it in. That way if (usually when) some of the wall reduces to powder as you screw it in, it’ll firm up after the glue dries so the screw doesn’t sag or fall out.
SiubhanDuinne
@Gary K:
I am also of the “Shop for boys, Home Ec for girls” era. In retrospect, I would have benefited far more from learning to use basic — I mean, really basic — hand tools than I ever did from making a tuna casserole topped with crushed potato chips.
And I wish I had learned the principles of cooking, meal-planning, and nutrition rather than just a few random recipes. My view is that anyone who can read can probably follow simple recipe instructions, but learning the “why” is both more fun, and likely results in tastier, healthier victuals.
Old Dan and Little Ann
I snapped the the tiny tip of a knife trying to open a jar of sauce a few weeks ago. It was inside of the jar top when I finally got it opened. I was still paranoid about swallowing it when eating our pasta that night.
Kayla Rudbek
If you cut a grape almost in half so that it looks like a figure 8, and put it in the microwave, it will generate a plasma because the grape dimensions will resonate with the microwave frequency pbs.org/wgbh/nova/article/how-does-microwaving-grapes-create-plumes-plasma/
WaterGirl
@Percysowner: That does look good!
oldster
Also, I’m a bit worried that the jar-opening thread is going to cross streams with the CPR thread.
“When I can’t get a patient’s heart restarted, I usually just tap on it with the side of a knife. If that doesn’t work, I try hitting their rib-cage against the counter, or prying between the ribs with the pointy end of a bottle-opener.”
“For stuck spaghetti jars, I usually try applying the defibrillator paddles. Remember to yell “clear!” before you energize!”
Kristine
@Tenar Arha: The push-down caps are always a pain.
The squeeze-in-the-sides kind?? I have at times resorted to channel locks.
Kristine
@Kayla Rudbek:
::stares at bowl of grapes on table::
::looks back at microwave::
::not gonna try it not gonna try it::
kindness
No xylitol in Jif peanut butter. Thank goodness. My pup always wants some peanut butter if I crack it out. And I give it to him.
WaterGirl
@Kristine: Speaking of garlic, i LOVE this roasted garlic from Penzeys.
I also use it to make my own garlic salt by mixing it with the sea salt. So much better than the crappy garlic salt I see these days.
Another Scott
@Tenar Arha: Ask your neighborhood 6 year old for help?? :-/
Similarly with blister-pack pills (even for doggies!!).
:-/
Seriously, if you get the cap off once, you can often (carefully!) trim/cut off one or more tabs on the plastic container to make it a little easier the next time. Or you can cut off the tab on the cap that catches on the container.
Unfortunately, there are so many variations that it’s hard to have a general rule.
I understand the need, but there should be an option for folks that don’t have kids at home to not have to nearly kill themselves trying to open medications.
Grr…
Good luck!
Best wishes,
Scott.
Scout211
@oldster: LOL!
Don’t forget to place the nitroglycerin tablet on the mouth of the jar.
Kristine
@WaterGirl: It’s a favorite of mine, too. Just bought a refill jar.
Carlo Graziani
@oldster: Now I live in fear that yesterday’s War&Tripe streams will join in. It doesn’t bear thinking about.
Lymie
@Kristine: You can tell if the garlic is imported because it will have no roots – required to be removed to avoid importing unwanted organisms.
Lymie
A tip I use all the time – when measuring a sticky substance for cooking or baking, put some liquid in a measuring cup and add the stuff you are measuring until it gets to the right level. For example, if you need 1/2 a cup of peanut butter, put 1/2 a cup of water in the cup and add PB until you reach the 1 cup level. Could use oil instead of water, depending on the recipe. Archimedes, baby!
Timill
@Another Scott: Round here (Oak Ridge TN) we specify that medications are supplied in non-child-proof packaging so we have a chance of opening them.
Derelict
My grandmother’s trick for opening stuck jar lids was to smack the lid down with the palm of your open hand. Might take two or three whacks, but it works great!
Scout211
@Lymie: Interesting! I typically rise the measuring cup with water before pouring the sticky substance. But this method sounds worth a try.
lowtechcyclist
Nobody here uses jar openers like this?
They’re thin, flexible rubber discs with a honeycomb pattern imprinted on each side. They give a good grip on both your hand and the jar lid. And as Carlo said upthread about the rubber band, that’s all you usually need since everyone’s arm can generate sufficient torque to open just about any jar. They’re frequently given away as freebies with advertising on them (like at the link), so we always have a few spares. I don’t think we’ve ever bought one.
trollhattan
@Tenar Arha:
The kind where there’s a cap over a second cap, and you’re supposed to press down on the outer cap to engage the inner cap, and then turn?
For those, pry the top cap off with a flat blade screwdriver and discard it. The inner cap should turn with some encouragement and serve its purpose going forward.
Other designs present their own problems.
My pet peeve: peeling off the safety wrapper, solving the child-resistant cap puzzle, to then be presented a seal having no pull tab. Some of those are made of hypersonic missile skin or something. I stab with a screwdriver and yank as much as possible off with pliers. I mean, really folks?
MagdaInBlack
@lowtechcyclist: I think I have 3 of those. all with advertising. One is from the grain elevator in the small town where I grew up.
Barbara
@Lymie: It also works for shortening or butter but it would be even more accurate to measure by weight. A good kitchen scale is a great help, but especially for flour and sticky things.
WaterGirl
@oldster: I laughed out loud. Literally.
WTFGhost
@oldster: Both crossovers, you might end up with walls coated in… things best not thought of.
@Scout211: I suspect if you put a nitroglycerin tab under the lip of the jar, then apply defib paddles, you might really want to call ‘clear”.
(I can’t help it. I saw the “Lost” episode best entitled, “yes, old dynamite is really dangerous, sometimes even if you do know what you’re doing!”)
Martin
@Carlo Graziani: PIlot hole should be the diameter of the solid shaft of the screw as if you had filed the threads off. What makes screws hard to put in without a pilot hole is that it can’t remove the wood that the threads aren’t cutting into so that has to get pushed into the surrounding wood – and depending on the wood type that can be quite hard. Pilot hole also makes screws go in straight because it usually prevents drifting of the screw head by the wood grain. Two other tips for using screws if you don’t want to own a bunch of tools:
WaterGirl
@kindness: Good to know that Jiffy doesn’t have xylitol.
mrmoshpotato
@Kristine: Never knew there was a “b” in doorjamb.
WaterGirl
@Kristine: What is a refill jar in that context?
lowtechcyclist
@Lymie:
I’ll remember that the next time I’m measuring butter to add to a recipe. It’s fairly solid when it comes out of the fridge, and while I can generally press it down until it’s roughly at the appropriate level in the measuring cup, that’s a lot more work than your Archimedian method would be.
WaterGirl
@lowtechcyclist: I use, and like, the flat rubbery disks, but they don’t always work, particularly with bigger jars.
The problem there might be that I have small hands. Guessing you do not!
KS in MA
@Another Scott: There’s a tool for that (minus the part where you pierce the lid) called a JarKey.
WaterGirl
@Barbara: I absolutely love my kitchen scale.
Rachel Bakes
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
all the type setting facts I picked up working at The Mark Twain House, learning about his life as a typesetter.
@jonas:
Carlo Graziani
Disposable nitrile gloves have become one of my essential kitchen tools. Whenever I have to shape some sticky mix (meatballs, shrimp patties, high hydration bread dough, etc.) or, crucially, dice hot peppers without accidentally blinding myself by rubbing an eye with a habanero-oil tainted finger, I reach for a pair from a box in the pantry.
(The habanero oil self-own is also bad if I should go take a leak before washing my hands. I don’t recommend that experience.)
dc
@kindness:
Grind your peanuts so there’s only peanuts in your peanut butter.
Scout211
I have always had a butter holder that has hash marks for tablespoons and 1/4 cup, 1/2 cup. You can line up your stick of butter and cut a piece to your measurement. No need to use measuring cups.
You can buy them anywhere and they are very inexpensive. This is the one I currently have. I think I got it at Walmart.
MagdaInBlack
@Carlo Graziani: I recall a friend who spent the day canning jalapenos, telling us “whatever you do, don’t…” about what you describe.
lowtechcyclist
@SiubhanDuinne:
That is totally brilliant!
If I were to use this, I might have to un-pie a few people first, but there’s rarely more than two or three commenters in a given thread that I’ve previously pied, so it wouldn’t be that big a deal to un-pie them first, then re-pie them afterward.
WaterGirl
Everybody knows that chocolate and red grape are really bad for dogs, right?
And garlic, too.
Kristine
@trollhattan:
Induction seals from hell. Yup. In most cases, the pull tabs rip off and the blasted seal hasn’t even budged.
WaterGirl
@Carlo Graziani: Even after washing your hands, if the peppers are fiery enough!
zhena gogolia
Not a fun fact, but we just saw a flock of cedar waxwings on our walk — so beautiful! I’ve never seen one. I had a bird sticker book when I was a child, and my two favorites were cedar waxwings and roseate spoonbills.
WaterGirl
@Scout211: Do you have a solution for when you reduce a recipe and you have to do 1/2 or 1/3 of a Tablespoon?
lowtechcyclist
@Scout211:
I’m usually using butter from a tub. (Don’t sticks usually come with measurements already on the wrapper?)
Kristine
@WaterGirl: Just a plain ol’ regular jar. Not really a refill.
Booger
@oldster: Just stab it with the tip of a knife to release the vacuum!
WTFGhost
@lowtechcyclist: I knew some ladies back in the day who called those jar openers a “rubber husband.”
Not everyone hears that with a perfectly clean mind, and thinks of “husband, will you open this jar for me,” and assumes something more, well, dirty.
@Derelict: An old, deceased, friend once agreed with that technique, it’s the “water hammer” effect often used to break fragile items, like jar seals, and submarines.
@Lymie: Another hack: if you have to add honey, and olive oil, measure the oil first, get the measuring cup *mostly* clean, then pour in the honey, which will mostly dump right out from the residual oil film. I know this works well with EVOO, which is dense; I’m pretty sure it works with peanut oil, too.
@Timill: Alas, a lot of meds now use Unit Pack dosing, where it’s hard as hell to get a single tablet out. What’s horrible is, Imodium (diarrhea) and Ondansetron (fast acting anti-nausea) both come in such packaging, and if you’re quivering all over because of neuro symptoms causing you to need either/both, it’s extraordinarily frustrating.
MagdaInBlack
@bbleh: I use “Bag Balm” which I used to get at Tractor Supply (farm store) for hands, elbows, even chapped lips.
It was originally for chapped cow udders, but smear your feet and put on a pair of socks and it keeps feet soft. There’s also Udder Balm, same sorta stuff.
Martin
@WaterGirl: ICE. Citrus growers are really having trouble finding labor. And we have citrus disease called HLB which is really hitting the state hard (we’re trying to keep it out of our lemon tree – keeps coming back) which you can take steps to address, but not if you don’t have any workers to do it. I think the lemon/lime harvest was down almost 50% last year, so you need more imports from Mexico and tariffs are making that a problem because they used to be able to just bring them in the country quickly and now they can’t. When customs backs up, food bears the brunt because it can’t just sit in trucks for days while CBP is too busy shooting people in MN than clear customs.
The administration is very proud of their declining trade imbalance forecasts, and citrus was a big part of the imbalance, and it’s improving because we’re just giving up on trying to import citrus. You just won’t have it to buy, and that’s what they want because it made the trade deficit go down. Never lose sight that the fastest way to solve a trade imbalance is rationing.
Booger
@Martin: Buy a round of gimlets!
Martin
@WTFGhost: I would have thought ‘rubber husband’ referred to something else entirely.
Scout211
Yes they usually do but I don’t feel confident in them because they are often wrapped willy nilly so the wrapper isn’t always in the correct spot
RevRick
I use a teaspoon as a pry to open cereal boxes and stubborn jars. In the latter case you just have to break the vacuum.
Scout211
I do, but it’s just me doing my “that looks like 1/3 or 1/2 or so, call it good” method. LOL. I’m sure there must be a scientific way, though.
kindness
@dc: Jif adds molases which I like. Also too, I’m lazy. Were I to grind my own I probably would go with cashew butter or something other than peanuts.
lowtechcyclist
@dc:
Or buy the kind that’s just peanuts, or just peanuts and salt. Trader Joe’s has either kind, in your choice of smooth or crunchy, at $2.49 a 16-oz. jar. (I usually have to pour most of the oil off the top, though, to keep it from being too soupy after mixing.)
billcoop4
Thank you for that true ROTFLOL moment.
BC in the ‘Dacks
Rachel Bakes
Had some cough drops a few years gi with xylitol. Did nasty things to my lower gi tract for 3-5 days, and I only had 2-3 cough drops over 2 days. Icky for some humans too
lowtechcyclist
@Carlo Graziani:
I should buy some of these for when I make meatloaf. I love homemade meatloaf, and it’s worth putting up with the way the mix of eggs and ground meat and whatnot feels on my hands while kneading the mixture, but if I wore the gloves, I wouldn’t have to put up with that downside.
WTFGhost
@Martin: The “good” news is, this damages the economy, reducing the chance that people will think Republicans are good for the economy come November.
The bad news is, all this economic damage causes pain to real people.
lowtechcyclist
@oldster:
You win the thread. No contest.
Carlo Graziani
Second @Barbara: A kitchen scale and weight measures produce far more reliable and reproducible results than volume measures. For AP flour, 1 cup is 5 ounces by weight is a very helpful conversion. A teaspoon of salt is about 6gm, while granulated sugar is about 4 gm/tsp, as is baking powder.
Also, I used to have a drawerful of measuring spoons, and one day I got curious about their calibration. I started weighing out water (known density) in tablespoons, teaspoons etc. (the smaller ones require miltiples, e.g. 4 × 1/4 tsp, so as to actually register reliably on the kitchen scale). The results were appalling. Almost every one was off by 20-30%. Unsurprisingly the plastic ones were worse, but the lightweight aluminum one were awful too.
I looked into some reviews, and discovered that this is a known problem. The fix is (as often happens) to buy OXO’s stainless steel set of measuring spoons. Those are very well-calibrated, and don’t warp.
FastEdD
Probably too late for this thread, but my Mom had one of those gripper devices for jar lids. It was called the Unscrew but she called it the Unscrew You.
Miss Bianca
@WaterGirl: Yikes indeed! But also, yay!
I work in a theater so I have this terror of the “what if someone has a heart attack in the audience” scenario in my head. And with the demographics of our county and therefore our audience (65+ is a hefty portion), I want to feel at least *somewhat* prepared to meet that eventuality.
lowtechcyclist
@Kristine:
You too, huh? My wife and I were talking about that just last night. We hadn’t noticed about the garlic coming from China, though, just that the heads of garlic in the grocery store all looked and felt old.
I’ll have to look for that in the ethnic food aisles of the groceries around here.
RevRick
@Scout211: One third of a tablespoon is a teaspoon.
Miss Bianca
@Carlo Graziani: I have also heard that “let the cat out of the bag” refers to a cat o’ nine tails being pulled out for punishment. Which makes a kind of grimmer sense to me than the other definition, because who’s going to be stupid enough to try to stuff a live cat into a bag in the first place?? (Not if you’re going to try to sell it as a live cat, anyway!)
eclare
@WaterGirl:
Penzeys roasted garlic is the best!
Scout211
Okay, now you gotta go and bring in the science.
But does a teaspoon look like 1/3 of a tablespoon? That’s what I wanna know. ;-)
Kayla Rudbek
@WaterGirl: conversion table hanging on the side of the refrigerator is key for this
lowtechcyclist
@Martin:
TIL what a ‘gimlet’ is. They do look like a handy addition to my tool kit!
Citizen_X
There’s an easy, familiar-to-many way to apply more brute force when opening a jar. This comes from a YouTube presenter whose name I don’t recall right now, a red-headed British physicist lady. She’s pretty prolific. Anyway, she pointed out that if expel a burst of air as you twist on the lid, the motion involves specific lat muscles that provide a lot of torque.
For anyone who has ever practiced karate, she was describing a kiai. So get your best Bruce Lee or Miss Piggy on, plant your feet firmly, place your hand on the lid, and hi-yaaa! Open that jar. It works.
WaterGirl
@Martin: It’s all so disheartening and frustrating.
WaterGirl
@Scout211: Hey, that’s my method, too!
WaterGirl
@kindness:
Interesting. Has that always been the case, or is that more recent?
WaterGirl
@lowtechcyclist: I slip my hands into two plastic storage bags and smush the meatloaf mixture that way.
But gloves would work, too!
eclare
Spray some Pam over popcorn to get the spices (curry for me) to stick.
WaterGirl
@FastEdD: I like your mom.
JaySinWA
@WTFGhost: My wife cuts out a dose or two of single pack medicine that’s hard to unwrap before needing them. Keeping it in an old container from pre unit wraps in her case.
WaterGirl
@Miss Bianca: Good for you!
Yes, we all got goosebumps when she was relaying her experience.
Old School
Honoring the great educators:
WaterGirl
@RevRick: We all know that, but they don’t mark that on the butter wrapper! :-)
lowtechcyclist
@WaterGirl:
With butter from a tub, just scoop it out with a measuring spoon of teaspoon (=1/3 Tbsp) or half-tablespoon size, and use a knife to flatten it in the spoon.
With stick butter, I’d go with Scout211’s suggestion and just guesstimate/eyeball 1/3 or 1/2 of a tablespoon, if I know how much a tablespoon is.
Another Scott
@WaterGirl: I think they’ve been adding sugar (or molasses) from the beginning. The sugar keeps the oil from separating out. (And gives the little monsters an additional bit of stimulant.)
(We buy Trader Joe’s chunky PB and have gotten pretty good at titrating how much of the oil to pour off before mixing. We keep it in the fridge to keep the remaining oil from separating out again.)
Best wishes,
Scott.
WaterGirl
@Kayla Rudbek: No, I know that 3 tsp = 1 TBSP.
It having to wing it when slicing the 5-1/3 TBSP out of the stick of butter that’s the issue.
Soprano2
@Tenar Arha: I asked hubby’s pharmacy to use ones that were easy open. My pharmacy uses the ones you can reverse to make them easy open. If you’re talking about over the counter bottles I can’t help you.
WaterGirl
@lowtechcyclist: Butter from a tub isn’t actually butter, right? It’s margarine or some such thing?
And yeah, I eyeball it, too, I just thought that some clever person might know a better way.
Narrator: It appears there isn’t a better way, unless you weigh your button on a kitchen scale.
Miss Bianca
@oldster: Wait…are you *sure* you’re not just relating some random AI instructions here?
MagdaInBlack
@lowtechcyclist: My first thought was that a Gimlet is one of my favorite cocktails.
liquor.com/recipes/gimlet/
JaySinWA
@Scout211: I have a wierd measuring spoon set that has a 1/2 Tablespoon measure that I use all the time, often for 1 and a half teaspoons in a recipe as well as reductions.
I have used a one teaspoon and half teaspoon from a set holding the handles together to get the same effect.
WaterGirl
@Another Scott: I don’t mind the sugar; I mind the xylitol.
And I was curious about the molasses because I do like molasses cookies, and I was wondering if maybe that’s why I ended up only buying Jiffy peanut butter. (Though I don’t buy peanut butter very often.)
I went through the phase of just peanuts and salt peanut butter, but I got tired of trying to stir the oil back in. Plus, the sugar problem helped the taste. :-)
Just look at that parking lot
@Scout211: It’d be a lot easier if tablespoon & teaspoon were eliminated and the directions just said use the ‘Bigspoon’ or the ‘Littlespoon’.
RSA
For another take on opening jars, I’ve read that twisting with your left hand provides more torque than with your right, because of anatomical differences.
JoyceH
I did know that xylitol is toxic to dogs but didn’t know they were calling it “birch sugar” – boo! But here’s a gripe. If you’re making a product for human consumption and including an ingredient that is toxic to their beloved canine companion, and the product is something that dogs love and is traditionally used to get dogs to take their pills – shouldn’t a responsible manufacturer feel a duty to label the product as toxic to dogs? How many of their customers’ dogs have they killed and how can they live with themselves?
And how while I’m griping, here’s another longtime gripe of mine. If they can make baby shampoo that doesn’t sting when it gets in the eyes, why on earth don’t they make all shampoo non-stinging? It can’t be expense because baby shampoo is dirt cheap.
Another Scott
Meanwhile, you (too) may be a Canadian…
Andrew Fleming Wonkette.com:
(Emphasis added.)
Interesting. We all might not need to escape to rural Portugal after all…!
Best wishes,
Scott.
nightsky
@trollhattan: I put an extra pair of pliers in my kitchen drawer so I an easily grasp little package parts to open them (like tiny plastic tab on TJ’s deli meats packages, rings on cans, etc.)
lowtechcyclist
@FastEdD:
Makes me think of George Carlin talking about how the real curse should be ‘unfuck you,’ IOW, ‘may you never again get to fuck.’
JaySinWA
@WaterGirl:
I don’t use it, but whipped butter is a thing. And volume measurements are going to be pretty useless because of the variable density. Thats true to a lesser extent of brick butter (variable density).
I do have a small scale that measures small amounts with good precision. I use it for coffee and small bread starter mixes. I do use a larger scale for adding butter to bread recipies, but precision doesn’t seem to be a big issue there.
Eunicecycle
@SiubhanDuinne: that is brilliant.
Tenar Arha
@Kristine:
@Another Scott:
@trollhattan: 1) thanks guys
2) the kind with the outer and inner cap’s the one that’s given me the most trouble lately. Absolutely refused to open at all. I pulled the outer cap off, it just wouldn’t turn, at all. (I tried rubber and an old style steel bottle/jar gripper opener too). I should have tried a channel lock, because I just ended up prying it off. 😂 It’s funny now, but I suspect my future is filled with these annoying issues as my thumb joints deteriorate. 😑
Tehanu
@lowtechcyclist: Yes, those are what I use. There are times when I have to run hot water over the lid first, though, even with the disc.
As for non-useful but fun facts:
— Lincoln Logs were invented by John Lloyd Wright (son of….)
— Victor Borge introduced the Rock Cornish Game Hen to North America.
— Fred Waring, famous choral director, invented the Waring Blender.
Booger
@JoyceH: C’mon, that would be like making the whole airplane out of the black box material!
Another Scott
Made me look… (beware the stupid popups) – JustAnswer.com:
Elsewhere I see that a stick of sugar-free chewing gum can have 1 g of xylitol.
The engineer in me gets very suspicious about warnings about toxicity when numbers aren’t attached. Just about every poison has various ingestion amounts necessary (which can be very low, but it’s good to know the numbers!) before there are health effects. Amounts matter! :-)
FWIW.
Thanks.
Best wishes,
Scott.
trollhattan
@zhena gogolia:
Lucky! Waxwings are gorgeous, seen rarely ’round here but sometimes. Seem to consider redwoods honorary cedars.
trollhattan
@lowtechcyclist:
Gilroy not what it once was. You’d smell garlic miles from town driving through, back in the day.
Matt McIrvin
Constellations aren’t, in general, physical groupings of stars, they’re just regions of the sky that happen to lie in a certain direction from our solar system.
However, some of the major “asterisms” (patterns of stars in the sky) can be partial exceptions. Five of the seven major stars of the Big Dipper/Plough form a group that share a common physical motion, called the Ursa Major Moving Group. It’s believed that they have a common origin in what might have once been a bound cluster.
There are other stars in completely different parts of the sky that are also outlying members of the group. That’s because our solar system is actually traveling *through* the outskirts of the Ursa Major Moving Group, though we are not of it. Astronomers once believed that Sirius, the brightest star in the sky, was a member, but they now realize that it’s too young to have had a common physical origin with them–its motion seems to be a coincidence. However, Alphecca (Alpha Coronae Borealis) is a member, as are Beta Aurigae and Delta Aquarii.
Over many thousands of years, the Big Dipper will gradually change its shape in the sky, because the two stars at the far ends of it are not members of the Ursa Major Moving Group, and are moving in a different direction. But those middle five stars will hold their relative positions for a long time.
Astronomers originally called this the Ursa Major Moving Cluster, which has the important property of being a thing you can sing to the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles song.
Snarki, child of Loki
re: measuring spoons.
Got a nice stainless steel set that are “long and narrow” (instead of the usual “half spheres”)
Very nice for fitting in the narrow openings of spice containers.
JaySinWA
@JaySinWA: Regarding butter specifically, a standard US quarter pound stick weighs 113g and has 8 Tablespoons. So a T is 14.125g.
Round to 14 or 15 grams to get to reasonable (1/2T =7g, 1/3T=1t=5g) fractions of a T.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Old School:
Jesus.
After they put a Trump banner on the DOJ building’s facade, I’m not really surprised anymore. I think it’s at least partly about “owning the libs”, but they look like deranged cult members (even more) when they do shit like this.
All for a guy who wouldn’t piss on them if they were on fire if it inconvenienced him or he benefited
Kayla Rudbek
@Another Scott: just how far back does this go?
MargeF
To teach a child if the moon is waxing or waning, what’s “left” is left.
JoyceH
@JaySinWA:
You can get spreadable butter in a tub, but I don’t think it’s 100% butter. I remember when I was a kid, my big sister made popcorn and she melted some of that tub butter because she wanted buttered popcorn – but when poured on the popcorn, the popcorn shrank and got soggy like if you’d doused it in water.
Martin
@WTFGhost: Turns out that’s not how it works. Florida’s citrus industry has collapsed – down 95% from its peak. They’ve only turned more conservative in that time.
Rachel Bakes
@Gary K: we had to do both home ec and shop. Hated the sewing section and could not get that part. Cooking my mom had taught me already. Shop had highs and lows. As a girly girl I broke some of the expectations: used the forge and anvil to make a screwdriver and then rebuilt an extremely dead lawnmower, to the surprise of everyone in the class.
Another Scott
@Kayla Rudbek: Dunno. Let’s take a look…
Canada.ca – Bill C-3 explainer:
(Emphasis added.)
This piece says that 20% of New Englanders qualify.
Dunno.
Best wishes,
Scott.
RevRick
@WaterGirl: So? There’s no such thing as too much butter.
Martin
@eclare: Or put some ghee in when you make it. It’ll do the same thing and make it buttery. Ghee is just butter with the water removed so it won’t make your popcorn soggy.
Glidwrith
@Lymie: If you oil a measuring cup, then measure honey, the honey won’t stick to the cup.
JAM
My old house came with this plastic jar opener attached to the bottom of a cabinet. It’s a flat plastic “V” that you push the lid into and twist the jar with both hands. I use it all the time, it works great.
I pry the little rubber lid out of my rx lids and use it like a stopper because I keep forgetting to ask for the non child proof kind.
JaySinWA
@JoyceH: I just checked, homemade whipped butter recipes add a small amount of water or milk when whipping. Land o’Lakes whipped butter lists just sweet cream and salt. “Spreadable butter” including a Land o’Lakes version seems to add oils.
I wouldn’t be surpized if there were water or oils added to most things that look like whipped butter, but I don’t know that the can be labeled as whipped butter.
Kind of like cheese products vs cheese.
Glidwrith
@Another Scott: Fun fact: celery is loaded with xylose and will help build up your cartilage. If it’s going to work for you, one stick a day for 3-4 days should show some results.
WaterGirl
@JoyceH: I know! That whole “birch sugar” thing really pisses me off. It’s dishonest and you can bet your last dollar that they didn’t do it because it’s good for the consumer.
Now that xylitol is linked to heart issues and increased chance of stroke in humans, humans who are paying attention probably don’t purchase products with xylitol. So they changed the name. Bastards!
And while I’m griping, why the hell do they put that in toothpaste!!!
zhena gogolia
@trollhattan: They’re so perky! They were hanging upside down, singing, and looking right at us and not seeming scared at all.
Matt McIrvin
@Another Scott: My maternal grandfather lived in Alberta for a few years in his childhood, but he was not born there and was emphatically not a Canadian citizen. (In a memoir he wrote much later, he described refusing to assert allegiance to the King.)
So as congenial a place as Canada is, I am pretty sure I am not a Lost Canadian.
WaterGirl
@JaySinWA: Yeah, I know that a up of King Arthur Flour weighs 120 grams, so I use my kitchen scale all the time for baking.
But I do not know how much a TBSP on butter weighs, so I do it by the markings on the package.
Doesn’t seem too hard for me to find that out and then memorize it, but somehow I have never done it.
Trivia Man
@Ohio Mom: and dr heimlich used the heimlich maneuver to save a life for the first time – when he was more than 70 years old (allegedly)
WaterGirl
@Glidwrith: Is that true even if the celery is cooked?
Glidwrith
@WaterGirl: Might work better because cooking would break down the cellulose in the celery and help free the xylose (which is NOT xylitol).
Glidwrith
@WaterGirl: Birch sugar isn’t xylitol, it’s xylose. Xylitol is the alcohol form. If they’re calling birch sugar xylitol, then that is incorrect.
Jay
@Kayla Rudbek:
@Another Scott:
1867, and applied to any resident of Rupert’s Land or any later Province or Territory that joined Canada.
So, technically, had your ancestor resided in The Crown Colony of British Columbia, for the required time, perhaps as a participant in the Frasier River Gold Rush, despite the fact that BC was an independent Brtish Crown Colony until 1871, the Act still applies.
lowtechcyclist
@Citizen_X:
Makes me think of that old SNL series: Samurai Tailor, Samurai Stockbroker, etc. They left out “Samurai Jar-Opener.” Gotta try it, though!
lowtechcyclist
@WaterGirl:
I think my hands would fall out of a gallon storage bag, because there’s just a little too much rigidity there. What I need is a roll of those bags they have in every grocery store’s produce section. I keep running into situations where they’d be better than zippies.
WTFGhost
@Another Scott: It has always been a point of pride to me, that, when traveling in Canada, they always ask what province, not what state, I’m from. It does give me the feeling I’d fit in, once I got past the unexpected cultural barriers. (Like, “never again confuse poutine and poontang. Canadians find that offensive.” I’m sorry – my brain breaks in very strange ways sometimes!) Alas, I know that my Grandmom was first generation German, and my grandpop was first generation Irish. However, my paternal line offers more hope.
There’s also the question of whether you could go to the Canadian embassy, and say “I care about what happens to other people; that means I’m vulnerable to political persecution. May I please have asylum?”
@Martin: That said, I have also heard people say if you make clarified butter, save the solids (not the water, which you’ve gently boiled off) for popcorn.
Still: I hadn’t thought of using ghee, plus butter. Now I’ll have to try popping in ghee to see what happens (ghee has a smoke point far higher than popcorn’s explosion point, and the oil should soak in).
One thing I remember did terrible things to popcorn (but my mom used it *anyway*) was Shedd’s Spread, which kinda-sorta worked on warm bread and vegetables, but not on popcorn (nor on banged grain – I tested!), because, yes, it was whipped with water for lower fat content.
Dang it. Now I must experiment with butter melted “just barely,” butter sizzled, and with or without ghee. NOW LOOK WHAT YOU MADE ME DO!!!
WTFGhost
@WaterGirl:
My god, sometimes it’s very strange to read Balloon-juice when stoned. I say nothing more, because it’s still daylight where I’m living.
Ruckus
@Carlo Graziani:
The screw base diameter or the screw thread/outer diameter?
Some people likely might not figure that out on their own, without making a mistake at least once.
There is a concept of screw to pre drilled guide hole size with charts available for free. It also depends on the material that is being screwed. Wood has a different concept of pre drilling or not and most of the time it’s not necessary or desired, unless the screw is a significant size diameter wise. Metals are an entirely different concept of hole sizing and need pre drill depending on the metal with the vast majority of the time pre drilling is required. Now in metal the hole is most often either oversized slightly or requires a tap to cut threads in one side of the parts if a screw is going to hold the parts together without a nut. It’s not a complex concept it’s just many people never do this in their lifetime so don’t ever need to learn it.
lowtechcyclist
@WaterGirl:
The Land O’Lakes tub container in my fridge describes it as “Butter with Olive Oil and Sea Salt.”
Their (salted) stick butter lists its ingredients as sweet cream and salt. The tub container lists its ingredients as sweet cream, olive oil, salt, and sea salt.
So AFAICT it’s salted butter with olive oil.
Trivia Man
@MargeF: I remember the moon cycle with the letters D O C – that is the sequence of shapes you see
JaySinWA
@WaterGirl: When I used to make hamburger into sausage I would put the seasoning and cure into a ziploc with the meat, seal it and massage it all together. Maybe more effort than using the bags as gloves, but it contained the mess.
JaySinWA
@lowtechcyclist: Depends on the product. see above @JaySinWA: Spread vs whipped butter. Land O’Lakes has both kinds.
lowtechcyclist
@MagdaInBlack:
I remembered that too (never had one, maybe I should!), but I always figured there was something real that the drink was named after.
Gimlet is also the name of the character parodying Gimli in Bored of the Rings, the Harvard Lampoon’s LotR parody.
WTFGhost
@WaterGirl: Memory is a funny thing; the more connections you have to something, the easier it is to remember. So, if you cared at all about weighing your butter, you could just weigh measured amounts each time you bake, until you forced your brain to memorize, “so many grams to a tsp, 3x as many for a tbl, 2x as many as that for 1 fluid ounce…”
But most folks, most of the time, realize it’s like reading one of literature’s classics, that is dull by today’s standards. You want to have read them, or memorized the weights… but not enough to do it :-).
@Glidwrith: Okay, now I guess I have to try to add celery to my marinara. I love marinara with chicken thighs cooked in; I think my nails are weak because of specific health issues I don’t want to discuss, but anything that builds up hair, skin, and nails is of interest to me, and marinara sauce lets you combine a massive amount of onion, garlic, tomato, olive oil, basil, oregano, and a touch of what else you want (add salt and pepper, if your tomatoes are unsalted), and, well, celery would work well in a slow cook first, then the onions until they start to caramelize, then the garlic (don’t want to scorch it), and finally crushed tomatoes.
My goodness, sometimes, I take a bite, and I can feel vegetable goodness radiating out from my stomach. Of course, sometimes when I’m eating, I’m loaded up on THC to a very (ahem) high degree.
Trivia Man
@WaterGirl: hate high fructose corn syrup? Watch for isoglucose or fruit fructose – same thing. And many more deceptive words are used for it.
Trivia Man
@WTFGhost: Just yesterday i had one of the sandwiches i invented – peanut butter and celery. Mmmm, mmm good.
lowtechcyclist
@Glidwrith:
Now I’m curious: what results would I be able to notice if I built up my cartilage?
JeanneT
@Glidwrith:
Xylose, xylitol: It’s confusing! This paragraph seems to help:
From sciencedirect.com/topics/biochemistry-genetics-and-molecular-biology/xylose?__cf_chl_tk=FBzrAzlTo17w…
“The name xylose (Greek ξυλον, xylon meaning wood) originates from the isolation of the sugar from wood by Koch in 1886, and xylose is also known as wood sugar. Xylose is a pentose and can thus form both pentofuranosides and pentopyranosides, with the latter being the most common configurations (Fig. 1). Hydrogenation, or microbial fermentation,1 of xylose gives the sugar alcohol xylitol (birch sugar), which is also found in many natural sources, such as birch sap. Xylitol is considerably sweeter than xylose, and is used as a sweetener.”
Glidwrith
@lowtechcyclist: Less pain and stiffness. It’s not going to cure something like rheumatoid arthritis or repair major injuries. Husband had less clicking in his knees going up the stairs.
Glidwrith
@JeanneT: Xylose also forms the first link in the major sugar chain that makes up the support structure for cartilage in humans. I’m reasonably sure we stop being able to synthesize it as we age. Hence, finding a dietary source is kind of important.
WaterGirl
@lowtechcyclist: Yeah, the ones I use are thin and you close them with twist ties, so no zip lock and not rigid at all. Closer to the ones in the produce section.
WaterGirl
@lowtechcyclist:
Sounds like it!
WaterGirl
@Trivia Man: I do watch for that. Decades ago I realized that if I bought something at Bakery X, I was good, but if I bought something at Bakery Y, I would swell up a bit.
I finally thought to ask. Bakery X used sugar. Bakery Y used corn syrup in their baking.
Bye bye Bakery Y!
Glidwrith
@WTFGhost: A single stick of celery in a batch of marinara probably isn’t enough to get an effect. One stick for 3-4 days, every day to see if it helps. If it does, you need to keep eating it to maintain the effect. The part of cartilage this helps turns over pretty quickly, roughly every 30 days.
mrmoshpotato
@Trivia Man:
Do you cut up the celery?
Gloria DryGarden
Can I kill mice with xylitol?
Glidwrith
@Gloria DryGarden: No
Kayla Rudbek
@Jay: my many-times great-grandmother was born Canadian but living in Minnesota Territory by about 1857-1858 (she’s the one whose first name was spelled differently in every single US census she ever showed up in)
Gloria DryGarden
@SiubhanDuinne: that might be life changing. Genius idea.
Gloria DryGarden
@Gloria DryGarden: phooey.
You win some and you lose some.
Martin
Ghee and clarified butter are functionally the same thing – ghee is just simmered longer to kind of brown it a bit. Effectively the same here. The point is if you remove the little bit of water in it, you can just put it in your popcorn.
Martin
@lowtechcyclist: Gimlet the tool is quite an old French term. Gimlet the drink is named after a British naval physician who developed it to treat scurvy or malaria, or maybe scurvy and malaria. Much more recent naming.
Carlo Gra, iani
(Deleted)
Carlo Graziani
@Ruckus: By “thread groove” I meant the base shaft, between the actual threads, as Martin also clarified above.
Timill
@Martin: Scurvy, with the lime. G&T for malaria…
Another Scott
@Ruckus: (As I’m sure I don’t need to tell you) Metric fasteners alone are a compelling reason to switch to the Metric system.
What size drill for an M8x1.25 bolt? An M8 bolt is 8 mm OD across the threads. The thread pitch is 1.25 mm. Hole for starting a tap would be 6.8 mm or so. Clearance hole would be 10 mm or so.
What’s the equivalent rule of thumb for a 7/16″ Whitworth bolt??
It’s madness!!11
Don’t get me started on plumbing fittings!!1
;-)
Thanks.
Best wishes,
Scott.
prostratedragon
@Carlo Graziani: Latex ones are another jar-opening helper. Nitrile, which are becoming more common I think, are too slick.
Cowgirl in the Sandi
Many years ago, in the early days of desktop publishing, I worked at a software company that wrote programs to translate font widths from Pagemaker and Ventura Publisher to Typesetters. The font widths for each letter were different, depending on whether you used PM or VP. So people would bring in newsletters or whatever to their typesetter but the result would be awful because of the width discrepancy. My boss wrote the program that would fix it but all the widths for each font had to be entered individually – and there were TONS of fonts with TONS of different characters – upper case, lower case, numbers, etc. All had different widths. If one was entered wrong, the page wouldn’t print correctly. I don’t regret leaving that company!
NotoriousJRT
@Percysowner: Agree. It has worked great for me!
prostratedragon
@SiubhanDuinne: Good tip!
Timill
@Another Scott: You know Joe Whitworth developed his standards while working as a subcontractor on Babbage’s Difference Engine?
Reverse tool order
@WaterGirl: @#88, 1/3 tablespoon equals 1 teaspoon (they’re often also marked as 15 ml & 5 ml). For 1/2 tablespoon, I just estimate the bottom half the volume usually. To be more exact, 1/2 tablespoon equals 1 + 1/2 teaspoons or 7.5 ml
Reverse tool order
@WTFGhost: @ #92, measuring oil and honey together, I just use a measure large enough for both. Measure the oil first, quickly add the honey that sinks to get the combined volume and quickly pour both out. The honey will stick if you wait.
CBP73
@Lymie: That’s how my mother taught me to measure Crisco back in the 60s.
Trivia Man
@mrmoshpotato:
In thin strips. Like you get on a deli tray at a cocktail party but thinner. Length is the width of the bread, you need sharp teeth to cut teach bite cleanly. I have also done it with diced celery but that is longer prep time.
sab
@Another Scott: We recently learned about this and the whole family is working on it. Not for cheap drugs. Just to have it.
sab
@Kayla Rudbek: Great-grand parents.