How To Reheat 7 Foods You’ve Been Reheating Incorrectly (Until Now)

Last week you might’ve had your mind blown clear open by the news that you’re probably reheating pizza wrong if you’re doing it in the microwave, toaster oven or like, a blowtorch, if that’s your method. But it isn’t just pizza that needs a special touch to bring it back to life.

Gawker’s Tom Socca admitted he had no idea that the best way to revive leftover pizza was in a skillet (medium heat, cover it so the cheese melts, then remove cover to crisp up the crust for a few minutes) and Bon Appétit has picked up on that potential gap in our collective knowledge with a bunch of other foods that need a special touch the next day.

Herewith then, six other foods you’re probably treated wrong in your attempt to make them palatable the next day. Check out the source link for more.

1. Eggs: This entry has the best advice, in our opinion, so it comes first and had to be included: “Do not reheat eggs. Repeat: DO NOT REHEAT THEM. If they’re in a frittata, just slice it and eat it cold.” Do people actually try to reheat eggs? Because eww, gross. On that note — anyone who’s successfully done so and not immediately vomited can feel free to let us know how at tips@consumerist.com.

On that note, here are a few readers’ suggestions:

Bev: “Make up a batch of scrambled or a big frittata and then reheat for a few days. The key is LOW heat and a short time period. Zap at power 3 or 4 (out of 10) for maybe 30 seconds for a powerful microwave or longer for a weaker one. Cheese mixed in with the eggs at original cook time really helps. And don’t try to reheat over-cooked eggs.”

Shanna: “Quiche can be reheated by wrapping it in foil and reheating it on the oven (or toaster oven) at about 300 for 20-25 minutes. It’s delicious (but I make a mean quiche).”

Suzanne: “I successfully reheat omelets and scrambled eggs by steaming them. Actually, steaming is a great way to reheat a lot of foods including meat! The food doesn’t get dried out that way!”

2. Steak and Chicken: A nicely seared cut of meat or a perfectly seasoned and not-to-dry bit of chicken can suffer in the microwave the next day. Try cutting meats into smaller bits and heating in a skillet over a medium-high heat with a bit of oil. Cook the meat until it’s warmed through, about 4-5 minutes.

3. Pancakes: If you’re like me, you don’t mind eating cold pancakes with some (freshly scrambled) eggs in the middle like some kind of genius breakfast sandwich. But they’re also easy to bring back to warm, delicious life: Pop them in the toaster oven or regular toaster to heat them through. Apparently “this works for chicken cutlets, too!” Cutlets and pancakes, more in common than previously thought.

4. Stews and soups: We know, we know — you just want to chuck that container in the microwave, zap it up on high and then wait for it to cool down from bubbling so you can eat it. But that makes the liquid evaporate, stealing precious bites from the very mouth you’re seeking to fill. Instead, learn some patience and heat soups and stews slowly in a pot over medium heat, Bon Appétit suggests.

5. Roasted potatoes: These also take a little time to reheat properly, but it’s worth it if you don’t want soggy, cold-in-the-middle potatoes. Heat your oven to 400 degrees, spread potatoes on a sheet pan and cover them in tin foil. Re-roast them until they’re warm all the way through, about 10-15 minutes. Remove the cover for another five to add crispiness.

6. Muffins and bread: What you don’t want is cold bread on the inside and weirdly warm on the outside. It’s a trap and you will fall into the middle of it and be mad when it happens to you. To get a thoroughly warmed muffin with a firmer exterior, pop those babies in an oven preheated to 350 degrees on a tray covered with tinfoil and heat for 15 minutes, then uncovered for another 3-5.

Via consumerist

Proof Jenny McCarthy is evil.......the real toll of anti-vaccination

The toll of the anti-vaccination movement, in one devastating graphic

Aaron Carroll today offers a graphic depiction of the toll of the anti-vaccination movement. (H/t: Kevin Drum.) It comes from a Council on Foreign Relations interactive map of "vaccine-preventable outbreaks" worldwide 2008-2014.

A couple of manifestations stand out. One is the prevalence of measles in Europe -- especially Britain -- and the U.S. Measles is endemic in the underdeveloped world because of the unavailability of the MMR (measles, mumps and rubella) vaccine.

But in the developed world it's an artifact of the anti-vaccination movement, which has associated the vaccine with autism. That connection, promoted by the discredited British physician Andrew Wakefield and the starlet Jenny McCarthy, has been thoroughly debunked. But its effects live on, as the map shows.

Vaccine panic also plays a role in the shocking incidence in the U.S. of whooping cough, also beatable by a common vaccine. Researchers have pointed to the effect of "non-medical exemptions" from legally required whooping cough immunizations -- those premised on personal beliefs rather than medical reasons -- as a factor in a 2010 outbreak of whooping cough in California.

These manifestations underscore the folly and irresponsibility of giving credence to anti-vaccination  fanatics, as Katie Couric did on her network daytime TV show in December. We examined the ethics of that ratings stunt here and here.

Among other worthwhile examinations of the impact of the anti-vaxxers, see this piece about growing up unvaccinated in Great Britain in the 1970s, and this disturbing piece by Julia Ioffe about her battle with whooping cough, a disease no American should have.

The lesson of all this is that vaccination is not an individual choice to be made by a parent for his or her own offspring. It's a public health issue, because the diseases contracted by unvaccinated children are a threat to the community. That's what public health is all about, and an overly tolerant approach to non-medical exemptions -- and publicity given to anti-vaccination charlatans like Wakefield and McCarthy by heedless promoters like, sadly, Katie Couric, affect us all.

Carroll, who assembles the relevant papers and documents on the MMR/Autism sophistry here, deserves the last word. "Vaccinate your kids," he writes. "Please."

Via LATimes

What If Your Autonomous Car Keeps Routing You Past Krispy Kreme?

On a future road trip, your robot car decides to take a new route, driving you past a Krispy Kreme Doughnut shop. A pop-up window opens on your car’s display and asks if you’d like to stop at the store. “Don’t mind if I do,” you think to yourself. You press “yes” on the touchscreen, and the autonomous car pulls up to the shop.

Wait, how did the car know that you might want an original glazed doughnut? Because it has data on your driving habits, and you’re a serial offender when it comes to impulsive snacking. Your car is also linked to your online accounts at home, and you had recently “liked” Krispy Kreme’s Facebook page and visited its website. 

Is this future scenario convenient—or creepy? It’s one thing if a car’s driver-drowsiness detection system (which exists today) sees that you’re nodding off and suggests coffee. But to make your automated car divert from its usual course because some advertiser paid it to do so, well, that sounds like a mini-carjacking.

Whatever you think of it, this future may be coming up on the road ahead. At the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) earlier this month in Las Vegas, automakers announced deals to deliver online services or in-car apps to web-enabled cars of tomorrow. And where there are free or cheap online services, there’s online advertising—that train is never late. 

We don’t know what that advertising might look like: It could literally steer your future car, or it could be more familiar, such as streaming ads across your windshield in auto-driving mode (maybe too distracting in manual-driving mode). But because ad revenue is still the dominant e-business model, it’s a safe bet that advertising will be coming to a future car near you. After all, Google’s acquisition of Nest—maker of “smart” thermostats and other appliances—last week appears to be its first step toward owning the Internet of Things. If the technology giant is leaping the firewall of your personal computer to the rest of your home, why not also your car? Apple co-founder Steve Jobs reportedly had hoped to bring an “iCar” to market, essentially a huge iPhone with wheels. 

Could advertisers really influence the route taken by a self-driving car? It seems plausible, and legal, in at least some circumstances. Say there are multiple routes to your destination. Some may be shorter in terms of distance but longer in terms of travel time, or some routes are equidistant. In those cases, there’s no obviously “right” route to take, but advertiser money could be a “plus factor” that’s just enough to tip driving algorithms in their direction. 

This practice doesn’t seem to be a big inconvenience for the car’s passengers, as long as the detour doesn’t add much extra time or distance to their trip. Some taxi drivers and hotel concierges are known to accept kickbacks from restaurants, casinos, strip clubs, and other establishments to steer business toward them. So this already happens today. But even if not illegal, it raises ethical questions and the need for transparency in a world run by algorithms most of us don’t understand.

More HERE Via The Atlantic

Federal judge sent hundreds of racist messages

.........Appointed by Bush, you dont say........

Last year, U.S. District Chief Judge Richard Cebull, an appointee of George W. Bush, was caught sending a racist email about President Obama from his courthouse chambers. At the time, Cebull, Montana’s chief federal judge for nearly five years, defended himself by saying the message “was not intended by me in any way to become public.”

It wasn’t long before the Judicial Council of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals opened a misconduct review, and on Friday, we learned that Cebull kept awfully busy disseminating offensive messages to his personal and professional contacts. The Associated Press reported over the weekend:

A former Montana judge who was investigated for forwarding a racist email involving President Barack Obama sent hundreds of other inappropriate messages from his federal email account, according to the findings of a judicial review panel released Friday.

Former U.S. District Judge Richard Cebull sent emails to personal and professional contacts that showed disdain for blacks, Indians, Hispanics, women, certain religious faiths, liberal political leaders, and some emails contained inappropriate jokes about sexual orientation, the Judicial Council of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals found.

Many of the emails also related to pending issues that could have come before Cebull’s court, such as immigration, gun control, civil rights, health care and environmental issues, the council found in its March 15, 2013, order.

In case it’s not obvious, it’s critically important for federal judges to maintain a sense of credibility and impartiality. Once a jurist is exposed as a bigot, he or she can no longer expect to rule from the bench.

In Cebull’s case, the 9th Circuit was not lenient.

The panel issued a public reprimand, instructed that the judge receive no new cases for 180 days, ordered him to complete  new round of judicial training, and told the judge he must issue an apology that acknowledged “the breadth of his behavior.”

Judicial impeachment was ruled out because he was not found to have violated any state or federal laws.

All of this, however, happened 10 months ago. Why didn’t we hear anything until now? Because Cebull resigned the same month as he received the judicial council’s report, making the sanctions moot.

That said, Judge Theodore McKee, the chief judge of the 3rd U.S. Circuit, petitioned the panel, arguing that the judicial council’s work should be made public. The committee agreed.

“The imperative of transparency of the complaint process compels publication of orders finding judicial misconduct,” the national judicial panel wrote in its decision.

VIA MSNBC

It's Not Too Late to Make San Francisco Affordable Again. Here's How

San Francisco, is in the midst of an affordability crisis. People here are angry and afraid. The skyrocketing cost of housing comes up in seemingly every conversation and dominates local news and local politics.

The recent piece on San Francisco's housing crisis I wrote for The Atlantic Cities seemed to hit a nerve. But it was mostly devoted to describing how the city got to be a place with the highest housing costs in the country. Now, I want to turn to what we can actually do about it.

We face a complex problem. It has roots in income inequality, a national issue, as well as regional anti-growth attitudes that extend well beyond the city boundaries. But at the city level, there are a surprising number of things we can definitely do.

Protect existing rent-controlled housing units

San Francisco has roughly 172,000 units of rent-controlled housing. Rent control is the city's core tenant protection, allowing many people to stay here. The first thing the city needs to do is to make sure we don't lose those units.

As housing prices go up, there is ever more incentive for owners of rental units to find a way to get out of the landlord business and sell. One of the most often abused mechanisms is California’s Ellis Act, a state law that says that landlords have the unconditional right to evict tenants to "go out of business."

Tenant groups in San Francisco have developed a set of proposals to make it more difficult for landlords to use the Ellis Act as a tool to evict people. One of the proposed reforms that seems to make sense is to discourage the practice of buying rent-controlled units for the purpose of converting to Tenancy-in-common units (TICs) or condos by requiring landlords to have been in the landlord business for some set period of time before using the Ellis Act to “leave the business.”

There is a social compact in San Francisco that needs to be upheld: rent-controlled units should stay under rent control, while ownership opportunities should come from new construction.

Reinvest in San Francisco’s public housing stock

The San Francisco Housing Authority has 6,300 units of public housing and roughly 9,000 Section 8 vouchers (which help subsidize rents for low-income tenants). The city is in the process of compiling a broad public housing reform plan to better manage this housing stock and provide resources to upgrade many of its public housing buildings.

At the same time, the city is also working on an ambitious program to rehabilitate its most troubled public housing units as part of a program called HOPE SF. Through Hope SF, the city government is seeking to build in a comprehensive set of social services to give residents the resources to get out of poverty. San Francisco has started this process by identifying the highest-need public housing developments (such as those at Sunnydale and Potrero Terrace), pairing them with project sponsor teams, but much of the funding for both the redevelopment and the resident services still needs to be identified.

HOPE SF and the broader set of public housing renovations offer an opportunity to physically knit public housing back into the fabric of the city. But most importantly, it means we can keep all those affordable units habitable.

More here Via The Atlantic

The Decline of the American Book Lover

And why the downturn might be over.

The Pew Research Center reported last week that nearly a quarter of American adults had not read a single book in the past year. As in, they hadn't cracked a paperback, fired up a Kindle, or even hit play on an audiobook while in the car. The number of non-book-readers has nearly tripled since 1978.
If you are the sort of person who believes that TV and the Internet have turned American culture into a post-literate scrubland full of cat GIFs and reality TV spinoffs, then this news will probably reinforce your worst suspicions. But buried beneath it, I think there's an optimistic story to tell about American book culture. It's about the kids. 
Without question, the American bookworm is a rarer species than two or three decades ago, when we didn't enjoy today's abundance of highly distracting gadgets. In 1978, Gallup found that 42 percent of adults had read 11 books or more in the past year (13 percent said they'd read more than 50!).  Today, Pew finds that just 28 percent hit the 11 mark. 
But here's why I wouldn't proclaim the death of the book quite yet (aside from the fact that the vast majority of the country does still read them).First, as shown on the Pew chart below, the number of books an American reads tends to be closely associated with his or her level of education. Even those with just a little bit of college read far more, on average, than men and women who only finished high school. That may be because people who grow up reading are far more likely to enroll in higher education. But it seems at least somewhat likely that reading books in class conditions people to read books later in life. And the good news (for publishers, at least) is that today's twenty-somethings, as a rule, go to college. A recent Department of Education study found that 85 percent of the high-school class of 2004 had at least some postsecondary education. 

It's true that those highly educated young adults aren't reading that many books today. The average 18-to-29 year old finishes nine per year, compared to 13 among older American. But according to the National Endowment for the Arts, teens and twenty-somethings have almost always read less than older adults.

Most importantly, the percentage of young folks reading for pleasure stopped declining. Last year, the NEA found that 52 percent of 18-24 year-olds had read a book outside of work or school, the same as in the pre-Facebook days of 2002. If book culture were in terminal decline, this is the demographic where you'd expect it to be fading fastest. Perhaps the worst of the fall is over. 

Via The Atlantic

What is the science behind the selfie?

The selfie has arguably become the greatest photographic trend of our time. Why are we so interested in taking and sharing selfies and how does observing an image of yourself differ from observing a picture of someone else, asks University College London neuroscientist James Kilner.

In everyday social situations we spend a lot of our time looking at and interpreting other people's faces and facial expressions. Indeed, reading and responding correctly to other people's facial expressions is essential for successful social interactions.

Through our lifetimes we become experts at recognising and interpreting other people's faces and facial expressions. In contrast, we have very little experience of looking at our own faces.

Our perception of our own facial expression comes from our sense of feeling our faces move. This lack of visual knowledge about our own faces means we have a very inaccurate representation of what our own faces look like at any given time. For example, it has been demonstrated that when people are shown an image of themselves and asked to match it they are unable to accurately produce the same facial expression without being able to see themselves.

This lack of knowledge about what we look like has a profound effect on what we think we look like. When people are asked to pick a photograph which they think looks most like them - from a series of photographs in which an actual photograph has been digitally altered to produce more attractive and less attractive versions - people are very bad at selecting the original photograph.

Given that we have a poor representation of what we look like, this is perhaps unsurprising. What is surprising is that people systematically choose images that have been digitally altered to make the person appear more attractive.

In other words, we have an image of ourselves that tends to be younger and more attractive than we actually are.

This might in part explain our obsession with selfies. For the first time we are able to take and retake pictures of ourselves until we can produce an image that come closer to matching our perception of what we think we look like.

VIA BBC

We Have Lost The Battle Over Net Neutrality

A U.S Appeals Court has tossed aside regulations that ensure broadband providers treat internet traffic equally. We could be seeing the start of a tiered internet service - one that favors websites who pay for an increase in bandwidth.

Read more about this serious issue here hubub.com

Why America Has So Many People In Prison

Via Upworthy

Horrific Origins Behind Disney Movies

What’s not to love about animals that talk and brave boys and girls who overcame mean caretakers. In fact given a chance we watched those happy ending movies every day as kids. A look at the real stories behind these Disney movies however shows some gruesome details that were left out. Reading this will change how you viewed your childhood completely.

1. Cinderella

In the movie, Cinderella has a fairy godmother and loses her shoe because she is in a rush. In the real story though, Cinderella prays everyday by a tree she has planted by her mother’s grave. She loses her shoe because the prince cleverly enough uses pitch on the steps to make Cinderella stick to them but only the shoe gets lost. On attending her wedding, her two evil sisters get to have their eyes pecked out by birds.
 

2. The Little Mermaid

In the movie, the mermaid rescues the prince and they fall in love. She visits a witch who gives her legs and gets her tongue in exchange. In the story, the mermaid’s only way to remain human is by finding a prince, kiss him; he falls in love with her and later marries her. If she fails she turns back to a mermaid in the movie but in the story, she dies. The penalty for having legs in the story is that every single step feels like she is walking on shards of sharp glass. The prince marries another woman and but the mermaid can’t kill him as is required of her and she instead turns into sea foam after throwing herself into the sea.

3. The Fox and the Hound

A fox is raised by a hunter’s family but runs of into the wild in the book. On one of his returns to taunt the dogs, a dog breaks his chains and is hit by a train while trying to chase him. The devastated hunter vows to kill the fox but doesn’t catch him. The fox, Tod is killed by exhaustion from running while Copper the dog is shot dead due to old age. The movie though has a baby fox and puppy become great friends.

4. Beauty and the Beast

Some accuracy is maintained in this one, but something is left out. Belle’s two wicked sisters persuade her not to leave after the beast allows her to go home for only a week. This is in the hopes that the beast eats her up alive on return due to anger. That’s no happy ending.
 

5. Pinocchio

Pinocchio’s is more mischievous in the book. As soon as he learns to walk in the book, he runs off and has Geppetto arrested because the police think he is being abused. On his return home he kills a talking cricket and sells off his books for a Great Marionette Theatre ticket after Geppeto insists he returns to school. A fox and cat try to hang him after stealing his money but he changes and saves Geppetto from the terrible dogfish. The part where boys are turned into donkeys and sold off to evil circuses did end up in the movie though.
 

6. Sleeping Beauty

The real story by Giambattista has a king knock on Sleeping Beauty’s castle and getting no answer climbs up to the window using a ladder. He rapes the unconscious princess and leaves. The princess awakes after giving birth to twins and surprisingly gets married to the same king who raped her. The King’s first wife finds out about the marriage and fails in a plan to kill the twins, cook them and have the king eat them. The king and princess live happily ever after. The movie adapted the updated version of Perrault that has a tamer version of the story.

7. Tangled

The Brothers Grimm version has the prince get Rapunzell pregnant before they escape. On discovering this, the evil sorceress cuts off her hair and chases her into the wilderness. The prince shows up and desperately jumps of the window and gets blinded by thorns. He wanders blindly while their twins are born. The prince finally finds Rapunzell after hearing her sweet voice. His sight is restored by her tears and they live happily after this in the prince’s kingdom.

8. The Lion King

The movie was loosely adapted from Shakespeare’s Hamlet. Imagine that! The king is killed by a jealous brother and when the son finds out declares revenge. He gets distracted but finally kills the jealous brother. Everyone dies though in Shakespeare’s version.

9. Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs

In both the movie and the Brothers Grimm version, the evil queen (Connie?) asks the huntsman to kill Snow White (me?) in the forest. In the story though, the huntsman should bring back Snow Whites liver and heart to the queen. He brings back the heart and liver of a boar after he couldn’t kill her which the queen eats in the belief that they are Snow White’s. Yuck. Just like in the movie, Snow White becomes unconscious from eating an apple given by the queen. The book has a prince take her away in a glass coffin while still unconscious. Her carriers trip though and the apple dislodges from her throat. Snow White and the prince get married and during their wedding, they force the queen to walk in burning hot iron shoes to her death.

Read more HERE VIA unbelievable-facts.com

Jelly Belly debuts draft beer flavor jelly bean; tastes wheaty, smells yeasty

Jelly Belly Candy Co., the Fairfield, Calif., maker of Jelly Belly jelly beans (about 37 million pounds of them annually), has announced a new flavor: draft beer.

This isn't one of Jelly Belly's "rookie" flavors, which include the 50 classics such as buttered popcorn, green apple, coconut, sour cherry, cappuccino and raspberry. Jelly Belly also introduced dark chocolate-covered Tabasco Jelly Bellys at this month's Winter Fancy Food Show in San Francisco. (The Tabasco Jelly Bellys have been a flavor since last year; it's the chocolate coating that's new.)

Draft beer Jelly Bellys are an iridescent gold and were inspired by German Hefeweizen. Beer is a flavor that consumers had requested for decades, the company said. According to a release, the jelly beans have an “effervescent and crisp flavor .... Beer connoisseurs will find the flavor profile to be clean with notes of wheat and a touch of sweetness. The aroma is mildly bready.”

It's true, they do taste like sweet beer, with "notes of wheat" even. But their aroma is more than "mildly bready." They smell like sour mash. The smell of fermentation might be off-putting enough to make you wonder whether it's one of Jelly Belly's "BeanBoozled" flavors (remember canned dog food and skunk spray?). Or maybe it's a selling point for beer-brewing aficionados.

“Usually the factory has a sweet and fruity aroma, but when we’re making this flavor it’s just like being in an ale house,” says Jeff Brown, vice president in charge of manufacturing for Jelly Belly Candy Company.

“Usually the factory has a sweet and fruity aroma, but when we’re making this flavor it’s just like being in an ale house,” Jeff Brown, vice president in charge of manufacturing for Jelly Belly, said in the release.

Other new cocktail-inspired flavors include piña colada, mai tai and strawberry daiquiri. None contains any alcohol.

VIA LATimes

10 things you didn't know about Girl Scout Cookies

It's Girl Scout Cookie season, and it couldn't have come sooner. Your freezer is empty of Thin Mints. You freebased your last Samoa a month ago. Now's your chance to hit up your not-at-all-aggressive co-worker and score a stash from her niece. But where do these magical Cookies come from (Hint: They aren't made of or by Girl Scouts)? Who holds the sales record? Check out some little-known facts below, and then go order 20 boxes. That should get you through March.

1. These Cookies are older than your grandma
The tradition of Girl Scout Cookie sales began in 1917, when the Mistletoe Troop from Muskogee, OK stopped kissing people and began selling simple sugar cookies in their high school cafeteria as a service project. Another fun fact: Apparently Maggie Gyllenhaal was a Girl Scout in 1917.

2. You can make the original recipe at home
If you feel like taking a trip back in time and baking some boring stuff, you can try the authentic, original Girl Scout Cookie recipe here. It's not in the recipe, but they taste better if you dress up as a Girl Scout when making them.

3. Only two companies make all the Cookies
Girl Scout Cookies are made by two licensed bakers: ABC Smart Cookies and Little Brownie Bakers. Each Girl Scout council can choose who they want to provide their beloved biscuits, just like each baker gets to choose what to call their Cookies and what recipe to use. That’s why you wept that time you wanted Tagalongs, but thought you could only get Peanut Butter Patties before realizing they're the same thing.

4. Honey Boo Boo is banned from selling them
Last year, American sweetheart Honey Boo Boo was banned from selling the Cookies by the Girl Scouts of the USA, because, well, she’s not an actual Scout and was also selling signed boxes online. Even though she was just tryna help her local troop, y'all, the GSUSA were not having it, which is weird, because she’s the kind of great feminist role model the organization typically praises.

5. Thin Mints aren't just delicious, they're mandatory
All proposed Cookies must be approved by the national Girl Scout organization, and can change each year, but three are actually non-negotiable: Thin Mints, Do-Si-Dos/Peanut Butter Sandwiches, and Trefoils/Shortbreads. Yes, this does mean these bakers have more power than Obama, as they can decide whether or not to renew Samoas.
 

6. There is a Cookie Queen, and she's a master saleswoman
Elizabeth Brinton, often called the "Cookie Queen", holds the record for selling the most Cookies during her days as a Scout. During her monarchy, she sold more than 100,000 boxes, with clients that included Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, and Sandra Day O'Connor.

7. There's a (not-sanctioned) Girl Scout Cookies weed strain
There's a strain of weed called Girl Scout Cookies as its namesake, but has zero relation to the actual Cookies themselves (despite its creator's gardening merit badge), except in its ability to make you eat an entire box of Tagalongs.

8. Girl Scout Cookies used to cost less than a quarter
In Philly back in 1933, where the first official sale took place, you could snag a box of 44 Cookies for a cool $.23 cents, or dish out the big bucks ($1.24!) for six boxes. It was a simpler, fatter time.

9. There was a Cookie shortage during WWII
During World War II, due to shortages in key ingredients like flour, sugar, and butter, Scouts supplemented their Cookies by selling calendars too. Deficits were so bad that at points customers were limited to purchasing a very sad two boxes, adding to the collective national nightmare of living in a war-torn world of horrible calendars.

10. Not every Cookie made the grade
And now, a moment of silence for the Cookies that crumbled under the pressure, couldn't take the heat, and got burned. Fruity Mango Cremes, jam-filled Iced Berry Pinatas, zesty, chip-studded Lemon Drops... we'll never forget.

Via thrillist.com

Police 'Like' Wanted Pa. Suspect's Facebook Post

FREELAND, Pa. (AP) -- Police in one Pennsylvania town really "liked" this Facebook post.

The (Wilkes-Barre) Times Leader reports officers arrested 35-year-old Anthony Lescowitch less than two hours after he shared a wanted photo of himself and taunted police for not being able to find him.

Police in Freeland say Lescowitch shared the wanted bulletin minutes after they posted it on the department Facebook page Monday night. He was being sought on assault charges.

An officer pretending to be an attractive woman then messaged Lescowitch. Police say Lescowitch refused the offer of a drink but eventually agreed to meet for a cigarette, and was arrested at the agreed-upon location.

Lescowitch remained in the Luzerne County Jail Tuesday. Court records don't list a defense attorney for him.

Via wilx

Roland Looks Back at the TR-909 in New Teaser Video

After a flurry of leaked images and speculation about the Aira TR-08 followed last week's news of Roland's plans to take "the next step" in the lineage of the TR-808, the company has now shared a video which chronicles the making of the TR-909 and hints that the legendary ryhthym box may be in line for a similar reboot.

The brief, newly surfaced video does not show any sort of new drum machine or really give any details to what exactly Roland has in the works, but it does provide an interesting bit of backstory on the 909; in particular, revealing the decision to make the original unit's cymbal and hi-hat sounds from digital samples rather than analog oscillators. While it is currently unclear if there is an Aira TR-09 in the works (or if the TR-08 will instead attempt to incorporate sounds from both of Roland's legendary drum machines), the company's new teaser video—which ends with the phrase "So the time has come to plant a new seed, and take the next step in music history"—can be watched below.

Detroit's 10-Foot Bronze Robocop Statue Is Fucking Happening, People

Detroit is in trouble. It's bankrupt. It's practically begging people to live there. It almost sold off its fine art. Detroit needs a hero. Or a metallic reproduction of a fictional hero, as big as Michelangelo's David, connected to an upcoming movie reboot. I mean, it can't hurt, right?

The filmic remake of Robocop, that campy '80s nod to militarized law and order, is supposed to drop next month—just in time to throw some publicity at Detroit's own Venus Bronze Works, which is working on a mold for the city's planned 10-foot monument to the half-human, half-mechanical law enforcement officer, according to the Freep:

"The most important part is now," Giorgio Gikas of Venus Bronze Works in Detroit, a noted artist and sculpture restorer, said Saturday.

A small team overseen by Gikas will make sand molds of about 15 large foam pieces — each about 2 to 4 feet in length — that make up RoboCop.

Mind you, the city hasn't actually said yes to the statue yet; in 2011, Mayor Dave Bing called the project "silly", and its backers are still looking for a place to put it. But the idea was funded on Kickstarter to the tune of 67 grand, because geeks have money, even if Detroit doesn't.

VIA GAWKER

What's in Those Haribo Gummy Bears?

The science of lycasin, destroyer of worlds, intestines

In all fairness, you were warned. The Amazon description for sugar-free Haribo Gummy Bears reads, in part: "This product is a sugarless/sugarfree item with ingredients that can cause intestinal distress if eaten in excess."

"Intestinal distress," in this case, might be an understatement for what a series of viral Amazon reviews call, "trumpets calling the demons back to Hell," "guttural pronouncement so loud it threatened to drown out my own voice," and "100% liquid. Flammable liquid. NAPALM."

So why is it that gummy bears, an otherwise delicious, springy snack, become so sphincter-confounding once the sugar is removed?

A glance at the nutrition panel shows that the first (and thus most prevalent) ingredient in the sugar-free variety is lycasin, a hydrogenated syrup. Lycasin, meanwhile, consists mainly of maltitol, a sugar alcohol that is almost as sweet as table sugar but half as caloric. Maltitol is great because it doesn't cause cavities, but not so great because our bodies can't fully digest it, so it can ferment in the gut. The known side effects of the excessive consumption of lycasin are bloating, flatulence, loose stools, and borborygmi, the scientific term for tummy-rumbling. 

Via The Atlantic

Though the substance is considered safe to eat, in clinical studies, adults who consumed 40 grams of lycasin saw an increased frequency of bowel movements and "watery feces." The gummy bears in question come in bags of 5 pounds, otherwise known as 2,267 grams, otherwise known as a world of hurt.

Of course, this also means you now have the perfect hate-gift for your foes:

"I bought one order for the Westboro Baptist Church as a donation," one Amazon reviewer wrote. "Because we all know how much God hates irregularity."

Otherwise, this might be a time to indulge your sweet tooth with actual sugar.

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DJ Trayze Live From The Lodge At RedRocks 1/17 [VIDEO]

Gas Pedal TonePlay [Trayze Weekly Video #3] Time for another weekly video! First time I've ever done this routine. I just cooked up the idea earlier that day, didn't really have time to practice it, but it came off ok! No special edits used. Tracks are Rockwilder and Gas Pedal.

The Night Misguided Justin Bieber Fans Turned To EL-P For Support

VIA PigeonsandPlanes.com: Yesterday, police raided Justin Bieber’s house after an incident last week in which the singer allegedly egged a neighbor’s house. According to TMZ, the LAPD served the 19-year-old with a search warrant for anything relating to the dubious egg-throwing, which frankly doesn’t make any fucking sense because besides the eggs that were thrown, what other kind of evidence is involved with egging someone’s house? Maybe like a plan of action scribbled down on a Taco Bell wrapper? I don’t know, at this point I’m exhausted by Bieber’s life but he keeps popping up, so here we are.

Anyways, during the raid, police found what they now believe is molly belonging to Justin’s close friend Lil Za and Za was consequently arrested yesterday morning for drug possession. This whole ordeal obviously sparked a lot of reaction from the Twitter community, but out of the sea of those making jokes about pretty much anything having to do with this, an unlikely voice emerged: El-P. The rapper Tweeted his disapproval for the need to use law enforcement for something as stupid as egging someone’s house; and while his point is understandable, many young Beliebers looking for a voice of reason took this mistakenly as the rapper defending Bieber. How they found El, no one knows but once they did they followed, retweeted, and praised. In droves. The result was hours of El-P hilariously dealing with Beliebers in a way only El-P could. So turn on Cancer 4 Cure and enjoy.

See the tweets HERE.