Sambal

Most languages have a word for ‘tea’ derived from either ‘cha’ or ‘te’– a language map.

Don’t split tasks evenly, explains Noah Berlatsky, writing in Scientology puff-magazine the Atlantic:  Housework isn’t a debt wives owe to husbands, nor one husbands owe to wives. It’s not a gift you give to make a slave. Rather, it’s the quotidian stuff of which the relationship is made. We’re married, so we help each other. […]

Arnold Kling, quoting John Holt on schooling: Bryan’s view is benign compared with John Holt. society demands of schools… that they be a place where… children or young people can be shut up and so got out of everyone else’s way…. They are a kind of day jail for kids. [elided much of this paragraph – […]

Microsoft helpfully “upgraded” office in 2007 and destroyed all the personal intellectual capital that people had created by learning the menu system.  I took slight notice of this at the time because, hey, infant twins. Recently I’ve been dragged kicking and screaming off of Office 2003 and started using Office 2007, so I’ve had to […]

I’ve been making French press coffee for at least 20 years.  About every third time, while pressing the coffee, a little bit spills onto the counter. The other day I tried it differently: I put the French press into the sink and pressed it there. 20 years of pointless, needless counter-wiping could have been averted […]