{"id":10740,"date":"2015-10-03T16:36:39","date_gmt":"2015-10-03T23:36:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cahighways.org\/wordpress\/?p=10740"},"modified":"2015-10-03T16:36:39","modified_gmt":"2015-10-03T23:36:39","slug":"news-chum-stew-food-frogs-frames-battles-big-and-small","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cahighways.org\/wordpress\/?p=10740","title":{"rendered":"News Chum Stew: Food, Frogs, Frames, Battles Big and Small"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-8131\" style=\"float: right; margin: 5px; border: 1px solid;\" src=\"https:\/\/cahighways.org\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/07\/stew.jpg\" alt=\"Observation Stew\" width=\"100\" height=\"75\" \/>Now that I&#8217;m back from <a href=\"https:\/\/www.csunalumni.com\/bbq\">a wonderful CSUN EECS Welcome Back BBQ<\/a>, time to share some accumulated chum that didn&#8217;t theme. That&#8217;s right, it&#8217;s time for a refrigerator soup news chum stew, starting off with three food items:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Hydrox Cookies are Coming Back<\/strong>. Now, I was never a superfan of Hydrox like some, although I do remember them from my youth. What memories I have are of a less sweet, more chocolate cookie. In any case, the trademark was abandoned, recovered, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.latimes.com\/business\/la-fi-hydrox-20150925-story.html\">and someone is bringing back Hydrox<\/a>. There was also <a href=\"http:\/\/www.npr.org\/sections\/money\/2015\/09\/18\/441546748\/episode-652-the-hydrox-resurrection\">a great Planet Money podcast on this as well<\/a> (as well as the previous episode, which explored <a href=\"http:\/\/www.npr.org\/sections\/money\/2015\/09\/16\/440951873\/episode-651-the-salmon-taboo\">how Norway engineered Salmon Sushi into popularity<\/a>)<\/li>\n<li><strong>Picking a Favorite Apple<\/strong>. What is your favorite apple (and I mean food, not technology or recording company)? <a href=\"http:\/\/mentalfloss.com\/article\/68808\/guide-will-help-you-choose-your-apples-wisely\">Mental Floss purported to guide you with a decision tree on apples<\/a>, but I object: they completely omitted the best apple of them all: <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Newtown_Pippin\">The Pippin<\/a>. Alas, you can rarely find them these days. If anyone sees them on sale, please let me know.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Sycophants<\/strong>. One memory from Linguistics 10 is the etymology of sycophant: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.etymonline.com\/index.php?term=sycophant\">to show a fig<\/a>. I mention this because of an interesting <a href=\"http:\/\/www.npr.org\/sections\/thesalt\/2015\/10\/01\/444806351\/fancy-a-fig-california-s-growers-desperately-hope-you-do?utm_medium=RSS&amp;utm_campaign=thesalt\">NPR piece on how California Fig growers want you to eat more figs, and not just in cookies<\/a>. They want you to eat more fresh figs; additionally, they are diversifying the use of the fig while introducing it to new consumers. That&#8217;s why you can now find figs in chocolate, liquor \u2014 even soap.<\/li>\n<li><strong>747 Graveyard<\/strong>. I wrote an article a few weeks ago that included <a href=\"https:\/\/cahighways.org\/wordpress\/?p=10700\">a link about the death of the 747<\/a>. Here&#8217;s <a href=\"http:\/\/arstechnica.com\/cars\/2015\/09\/where-airplanes-go-to-die-walking-around-a-747-graveyard\/\">an interesting article on where 747s go to die<\/a>. I&#8217;ve always found airplane graveyards fascinating places: multimillion dollar chunks of equipment standing empty in a desert, waiting to be choppped for parts, to just disintegrate, or if they are lucky, to be refurbished and fly again&#8230; or <a href=\"http:\/\/www.darkroastedblend.com\/2009\/04\/abandoned-boeing-747-restaurant.html\">become a restaurant<\/a>&#8230; or <a href=\"http:\/\/davidhertzfaia.com\/747-wing-house\/\">a home<\/a>. or <a href=\"http:\/\/www.complex.com\/style\/2014\/06\/20-awesome-converted-airplanes\/\">something else<\/a>.<\/li>\n<li><strong>No Lily Pad He<\/strong>. Speaking of homes, Kermit the Frog is back on ABC. Did you realize he is <a href=\"http:\/\/www.domain.com.au\/advice\/kermit-the-frog-no-muppet-when-it-comes-to-property-20150925-gjtd51\/\">a real estate tycoon<\/a>. Some things you just don&#8217;t think about. But it&#8217;s true. The <a href=\"http:\/\/muppet.wikia.com\/wiki\/Kermit%27s_homes\">frog\u2019s portfolio<\/a> is enough to make anyone green: it includes a New York penthouse, an inner-city mansion, trendy repurposed warehouse, a Brooklyn apartment complex and a self-contained living room.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Breaking the Rule<\/strong>. Frogs owning homes. What&#8217;s next? <a href=\"http:\/\/www.vanityfair.com\/culture\/2015\/09\/penn-and-teller-fool-us-revealing-tricks\">Magicians telling the secret of their magic. Yup. That&#8217;s precisely what Penn and Teller are doing these days<\/a>. Further, they do it without spoiling the magic, but making you appreciate it more.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Stop the Internet. Stop the Crime.<\/strong> Here&#8217;s an interesting correlation for you: <a href=\"http:\/\/arstechnica.com\/science\/2015\/09\/study-racially-charged-hate-crimes-go-up-as-broadband-expands\/\">as broadband speeds go up, so does racially charged violent crime<\/a>. It this just correlation? Causation? Misuse of statistics? We&#8217;re just beginning to see how the internet can easily harm as well as help.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Where&#8217;s Victor Borge?<\/strong> The internet has changed many things &#8212; not just crime statistics. <a href=\"https:\/\/blog.kaspersky.com\/cyber-slang-peculiarities\/10079\/\">Just consider how the Internet has changed the meeting of everyday punctuation<\/a>&#8230;. I mean&#8230; oh, never mind.<\/li>\n<li><strong>The Battle of the 80s<\/strong>. As we recall the anniversary of the OJ trial, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.vanityfair.com\/culture\/2015\/09\/broadway-battle-dreamgirls-nine\">let&#8217;s think about another great battle and faceoff: the battle between the musicals &#8220;Dreamgirls&#8221; and &#8220;Nine&#8221; regarding the Tony awards<\/a>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Now that I&#8217;m back from a wonderful CSUN EECS Welcome Back BBQ, time to share some accumulated chum that didn&#8217;t theme. That&#8217;s right, it&#8217;s time for a refrigerator soup news chum stew, starting off with three food items: Hydrox Cookies are Coming Back. Now, I was never a superfan of Hydrox like some, although I <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/cahighways.org\/wordpress\/?p=10740\">Read More &#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[71,56],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10740","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-food","category-news-chum"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cahighways.org\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10740","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cahighways.org\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cahighways.org\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cahighways.org\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cahighways.org\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10740"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cahighways.org\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10740\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10741,"href":"https:\/\/cahighways.org\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10740\/revisions\/10741"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cahighways.org\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10740"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cahighways.org\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10740"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cahighways.org\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10740"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}