Have a look at this graph of our flickr stats. See that huge spike? I wish there were a good way to figure out what it was. When I look at the referrer list, it just says “flickr.” Did someone scrape our images? Was someone just looking? Who knows.
Peanut Butter Pop Tarts
Some time in the past three years, Pop Tarts (Kellogs?) introduced peanut butter flavor pop tarts. When Cyndi was in the states a few weeks ago, she brought some back for me to try.
First, I wish they had frosting. Pop Tarts without frosting automatically get points off, in my book.
Second, the filling was nice and peanut buttery. Many things that advertise peanut butter do it with a half-hearted effort
Third, I with the filling were less sweet. It tasted like peanut butter mixed with about 1/2 too much powdered sugar.
Overall, it was good; however, I’d like to see the filling less sweet and add some frosting.
I found the image I used on Serious Eats. The main poptart site wouldn’t let me save an image.
Idea
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Here’s an idea that I think could compete with Facebook, Twitter, and Google +. In some ways, it is based off the old <shoot, I can’t remember what it was called. It was a blog search, social network thing. When you posted a new article, this thing was told about it by your blog then people could search it>. Why not offer a service where:
What problem would this solve? Quite simply: ownership. Who owns the information you post to Facebook, Twitter, or Google +? Oh, you think it is yours? Nope…they own it. And, since someone else runs it, you don’t know if the government has ever issued a court order to get your data. Image from inju via flickr |
Double Rainbow
Yesterday, on the way home, there was a freak spring rainstorm. Out of that was a great rainbow. As we were on our way home, it even turned into a double rainbow. Here’s some pictures. The rest are on flickr.
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We are such Hicks
This is Cyndi, Lydia, and myself. Lydia is about 8 months old in this picture
Longest Flight?
Today on Fox News, I saw this article about the longest plane rides you can take today. Here’s the summary:
* United Airlines Flight 117/118 – Newark to Hong Kong (16 hours, 8,078 miles)
* Qantas Flight 7/8 – Sydney to Dallas (16 hours, 8,575 miles)
* Cathay Pacific Multiple Routes – Newark/New York to Hong Kong (16 hours, 5 minutes, 8,078 miles)
* South African Airways Flight 203/204 – Johannesburg to New York (16 hours, 15 minutes, 7,954 Miles)
* Qatar Airways Flight 77/78 – Doha to Houston (16 hours, 20 minutes, 8,016 miles)
That got me wondering about the longest flight I ever took. Turns out it was in 2007 when I flew from JFK to BKK on Thai Airways Flight 973. According to Wikipedia, that flight was 8,676 miles and scheduled for 17 hours. I remember it…we flew north out of JFK, almost over the Noth Pole, south over China (and some interesting deserts) then on to BKK.
I think the next runner-up was when we flew from Cairo to JFK on TWA in 1996 (I think). That was something like 14 hours/
How about you? What’s the longest flight you’ve ever been on?
Chartwell House
Yesterday we went to Chartwell. Chartwell was purchased by Winston Churchill in the 1920s. He lived there until he died in the 1960s. If you want to see all of the pictures we took, here’s the Chartwell set on flickr.
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Have a Kickstarter Account?
Change your password. Now. They were hacked and some user account data was stolen.
Flooding in Croydon
In a follow-up to this post on flooding in the Somerset Levels (that happen to be below sea level), Croydon also has a flooding problem. Cyndi and I were up that way yesterday. While Cyndi and Lydia went shopping, Isaac and I went for a walk and took some pictures. You can see all of them in this set on flickr, but there’s a few below.
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The problem, as I see it, is an old dry (or mostly dry) river/creekbed that has no where to drain. A huge roundabout has been built where the creek used to flow. So, the solution is to pump the water out. But, when they pump it out, it doesn’t have anywhere to go so they have to rely on the storm sewers to take it away. They had come up with a plan to flood a subway (not what you are thinking) with the water they are pumping out (but that wasn’t in effect when Isaac and I were there).
On one hand, I feel for anyone whose homes have water because of this. I can imagine it happened overnight with no warning (like a flash flood). On the other hand, I can’t imagine there’s no bigger pumps anywhere on the island to pump it out. Using fire engines just seem inefficient to me
Living Below Sea Level
Everyone knows–or at least I assume everyone knows–that parts of the Netherlands (aka Holland…see this video for more information on this country)–are below sea level. Well, did you know that part of England is also below sea level? Well, it is: Somerset I didn’t know it until the news media started running stories about pumping in Somerset. Here’s some news stories (along with a video you can watch):
Will the military help pump at Somerset
Pumping Continues (good video)
[Update 2014-02-16 07:42:14] Here’s an article about flooding in Croydon (with some pictures that Isaac and I took yesterday.
Image from alex foster via flickr