Octopus Overlords

Daehawk wrote: ↑Tue Jul 03, 2018 7:55 pm It stuck me right there that in the US alone there must be a mind boggling amount of food wasted each and every day.

About 150,000 tons of food is tossed out in US households each day, equivalent to about a third of the daily calories that each American consumes. Fruit and vegetables were the most likely to be thrown out, followed by dairy and then meat.

This waste has an environmental toll, with the volume of discarded food equivalent to the yearly use of 30m acres of land, 780m pounds of pesticide and 4.2tn gallons of irrigated water. Rotting food also clogs up landfills and releases methane, a powerful greenhouse gas

One of the "talking" golden retrievers who starred in several of the Bush's Baked Beans commercials during their run over two decades has died from cancer.

Unagi wrote: ↑Wed Jul 04, 2018 8:42 am Have any of you been reading about the Thai children's soccer team that was lost in a huge cave network?

pr0ner wrote: ↑Wed Jul 04, 2018 9:18 am

Unagi wrote: ↑Wed Jul 04, 2018 8:42 am Have any of you been reading about the Thai children's soccer team that was lost in a huge cave network?

Yes. In this same thread.

wonderpug wrote: ↑Wed Jul 04, 2018 9:26 am Have any of you been reading about 2 lb cartons of Xtra Cheddar Goldfish?



It's really an amazing snack that seems like it's going to have a Happy ending.

Kraken wrote: ↑Tue Jul 03, 2018 9:24 pm I make a menu plan each week and only buy the grocs I need to support it, so I very rarely throw anything away. Sometimes I have to buy a bigger container than I could ever realistically use -- e.g., I have to buy a pint of sour cream when I only want a couple tablespoons, and I can never use up a whole celery heart before it starts to go mushy. Sometimes Wife brings home leftovers from work functions; those often just rot, but they were being thrown out anyway. I take into account what's already on hand when planning the week's menu, so I waste next to nothing.

Daehawk wrote: ↑Thu Jul 05, 2018 1:01 pm The rest of the day is snacking like chips, snack cakes, ice cream,candy, quick noodles, ramen...

...This is why I dont gain weight by not exorcise or walking or anything. I sit here and get older. Ive actually lost 24 lbs last couple years.

MHS wrote: ↑Thu Jul 05, 2018 1:45 pm

Daehawk wrote: ↑Thu Jul 05, 2018 1:01 pm The rest of the day is snacking like chips, snack cakes, ice cream,candy, quick noodles, ramen...

...This is why I dont gain weight by not exorcise or walking or anything. I sit here and get older. Ive actually lost 24 lbs last couple years.

You are a medical mystery.

DD* wrote: ↑Thu Jul 05, 2018 2:54 pm I really, really wanted a couple of hot dogs yesterday. No such luck.

Isgrimnur wrote: ↑Thu Jul 05, 2018 3:23 pm Hot dogs are inferior to Polish sausage.

A former Thai navy Seal has died from a lack of air while placing air tanks inside the cave where 12 boys have been stranded for nearly two weeks.
...
The presence of hundreds of rescue workers inside the cave has been depleting the air supply the boys have been relying on, with oxygen inside their chamber down to about 15%, deputy army commander Chalongchai Chaiyakham said at a briefing on Friday.

Normal oxygen levels in the air are about 21%. Chaiyakham said he was unsure how long the boys could survive in such conditions. “I’m not a medical person. I can’t answer that,” he said. Divers have released 30 tanks of air to try to restore healthy levels.

The former Seal, identified as Saman Kunan, died around 1am on Friday morning after he was returning from placing air tanks along the roughly 3.2km route to the boys, the current method for replenishing the air supply in the cave.

Kunan became unconscious while making the return journey to “chamber three”, around 1.5km inside the cave. A diving buddy tried to revive him but was unsuccessful. His body has been sent to Bangkok airport and he will receive a royal-sponsored funeral.

Isgrimnur wrote: ↑Fri Jul 06, 2018 9:53 am Thailand

Spiders have no wings, but they can take to the air nonetheless. They’ll climb to an exposed point, raise their abdomens to the sky, extrude strands of silk, and float away. This behavior is called ballooning. It might carry spiders away from predators and competitors, or toward new lands with abundant resources. But whatever the reason for it, it’s clearly an effective means of travel. Spiders have been found two-and-a-half miles up in the air, and 1,000 miles out to sea.

[...]

Ballooning spiders operate within this planetary electric field. When their silk leaves their bodies, it typically picks up a negative charge. This repels the similar negative charges on the surfaces on which the spiders sit, creating enough force to lift them into the air. And spiders can increase those forces by climbing onto twigs, leaves, or blades of grass. Plants, being earthed, have the same negative charge as the ground that they grow upon, but they protrude into the positively charged air. This creates substantial electric fields between the air around them and the tips of their leaves and branches—and the spiders ballooning from those tips.

[...]

First, they showed that spiders can detect electric fields. They put the arachnids on vertical strips of cardboard in the center of a plastic box, and then generated electric fields between the floor and ceiling of similar strengths to what the spiders would experience outdoors. These fields ruffled tiny sensory hairs on the spiders’ feet, known as trichobothria. “It’s like when you rub a balloon and hold it up to your hairs,” Morley says.

In response, the spiders performed a set of movements called tiptoeing—they stood on the ends of their legs and stuck their abdomens in the air. “That behavior is only ever seen before ballooning,” says Morley. Many of the spiders actually managed to take off, despite being in closed boxes with no airflow within them. And when Morley turned off the electric fields inside the boxes, the ballooning spiders dropped.

Charter Communications launched its mobile broadband service on June 30, and it's throttling all video streams to DVD quality.

"DVD-quality video streaming is supported. Video typically streams at 480p," Charter notes in the "Pricing & Other Info" section of its mobile sign-up page. The quality limit is similar to one just imposed by Comcast, which previously did not impose any video quality limits on its mobile service.

NBCnews.com wrote:CHIANG RAI, Thailand — A team of divers on Sunday began a rescue operation to try and save 12 boys on a soccer team and their coach from the Thailand cave where they have been trapped for two weeks.

Chiang Rai Gov. Narongsak Osatanakorn told reporters at a briefing Sunday that the mission to save the 12 boys and their coach from Tham Luang cave began at 10 a.m. local time.

A total of 18 expert divers — 13 international and five Thai — will proceed deep into the hillside through the waterlogged passages to the chamber where the team is located. "One boy will be accompanied by two divers. They will come out of the cave one group at a time," Narongsak said.

The rescue is expected to take hours. Narongsak said the earliest they will come out is 9 p.m. Sunday local time (10 a.m. E.T.)

Narongsak said that conditions inside the cave were the best they could hope for and that water levels were now so low after days of good weather and constant draining that long stretches of the passage were now walk-able.

"Today is the best day for them to come out," he said. "They really wanted to come out now as well. They are ready both mentally and physically."

An Australian medic has been inside the team's chamber and has confirmed that the boys and their coach are ready and willing to make their escape after over two weeks underground. Medical teams have been preparing for the rescue operation for three days and are ready, Narongsak said.

...

They entered the site under brooding clouds spitting steady rain. Until Saturday evening, the torrential downpours that had been forecasted had failed to materialize, giving authorities a window to extract water from the cave and give further cave diving training to the boys. The weather broke around 9 p.m. Saturday though, with a deluge hitting the area.

Four members of a youth soccer team were rescued Sunday from a cave complex in northern Thailand where they had been stranded for more than two weeks, according to the provincial governor.

The four were checked out in a field hospital near the cave and then helicoptered 37 miles south to a hospital in Chiang Rai, where an entire floor has been reserved for the rescue effort.

“Everybody is perfectly healthy,” said Narongsak Osatanakorn, the outgoing governor of Chiang Rai province. “The operation is going better than expected.”

More rescues were expected for the eight remaining players, aged 11 to 16, and their 25-year-old coach, who have been trapped since June 23, when monsoon rains flooded the six-mile cave system they were exploring. Because all the rescue equipment was used up in Sunday’s attempts, the next push would have to wait until Monday morning, Narongsak said.

Heavy rains have started falling over the lush mountain range that houses the cave, adding urgency.

Kraken wrote: ↑Sun Jul 08, 2018 7:03 pm Rum would taste nasty with lime.

LawBeefaroni wrote: ↑Thu Jul 05, 2018 3:29 pm

Isgrimnur wrote: ↑Thu Jul 05, 2018 3:23 pm Hot dogs are inferior to Polish sausage.

They're also inferior to a prime t-bone. But they have their place.