Brain Toys for the Holidays

[jesse_the_k]

You Suck at Cooking Xmas Cookies

You don’t need a cookie cutter! Silly combination of sober instructional voice and pace with surreal language and detailed pictures so it manages to push through the brain case anyway.

Watch on YouTube

Prompts From Your Birth Year

Merriam-Webster hosts a gizmo where you plug in your birth year and get more than 25 words that entered the dictionary at that time.

https://www.merriam-webster.com/time-traveler/1955 is mine. You don’t have to use their input scheme: just put a four-digit birth year at the end of the link.

I’m thrilled to find words dear to me:

• hidden agenda
• motormouth
• Peking duck
• stir-fry
• wet suit

The Decameron Project

100 short sf stories (and novel excerpts) free to read:

https://www.patreon.com/projectdecameron

Racism As a Public Health Issue

Right2Health was founded by Leslie Gregory, a certified Physician Assistant, navy veteran, Black woman and mother of two. Since 2006, she’s been focused on healing those affected by everyday racism.

Right To Health is about health prevention. It’s about bringing people together to share, care and alleviate the disparities that come with racial injustice and economic inequality. We are a wholly volunteer group with a vision: to create a national network of healthcare providers, researchers, scientists, healers, community leaders, technologists, educators and anyone else committed to alleviating the ills of racism across all ethnic groups, with particular attention to Black Americans.

https://www.right2healthus.org/about-us

Thirty-minute radio interview (no transcript) exploring the evidence for "racism as public health" from 20 years experience:

https://kboo.fm/media/82934-right-health-director-leslie-gregory-campaigns-racism-be-considered-public-health-issue

Black Nerd Comics by Ajuan Mance

These are beautiful, funny, insightful

http://www.ajuanmance.com

https://checkallthatapply.com

8_rock

Found her work through Drawing Power: Women’s Stories of Sexual Violence, Harassment, and Survival. It’s a golden group of excellent creators, although sometimes hard reading.

Comments

[sonia]

Cool word link! My best one from 1969 is analemma. Also, surprisingly, telnet and local area network. Would not have guessed they went back that far. Superminicomputer!? Plate techtonics! Crystal meth. :-( Also would not have guessed that went back that far.

[jesse_the_k]

Yes, the word origin info is super counterintuitive and therefore delightful.

[runpunkrun]

JANGLE CHOPPER

I really enjoyed that cooking video.

[jesse_the_k]

YSAC is a reliable friend when I'm feeling anxious -- no bad mood can survive this channel's total disregard for serious cooking.

[runpunkrun]

That's such a good anti-anxiety idea. I just went and watched the Butternut Squash episode, and YSAC's whole thing is really satisfying for me: the mix of serious and absurd with the authoritative voice. Like things are clearly not right but there's no reason to get upset about it and in fact no one is.

So true

[jesse_the_k]

...and there's more than a 100 to soothe us on Those Days.

Re: So true

[runpunkrun]

I have, as the kids say, liked and subscribed. :D

Re: So true

[jesse_the_k]

We Rate Dogs -- aka dogrates -- has posted their "best of 2020." I laughed, I wept.

https://youtu.be/2I_haW_2YHc

Re: So true

[runpunkrun]

Those are some very, very good dogs.

PLUS!

[jesse_the_k]

no grimness can survive watching number 19, You Suck at Cooking Yams with Dill. (Our guide forgets some important ingredients and invokes Satan!)

Re: PLUS!

[runpunkrun]

"And we have the onion set to 375" made me chortle out loud.

Also the belt sander. Though the friend's kitchen was probably covered with yam after that.

[resonant]

1964 gets Zip code, ska, ninja, and homophobia.

[jesse_the_k]

I actually remember the cheesy TV commercials that raised public awareness about ZIP codes, but I would have pegged the others in the mid 70s.

Sadly, M-W doesn't offer historical samples, so I checked the OED* for homophobia.

Two 1969 samples have different meanings:

1969 Screw 23 May 20/1 What a pitiful state of affairs has been brought about by homophobia! (Homophobia is an intense and neurotic fear of being thought attracted to one's own sex.)

vs. the current sense,

1969 Time 31 Oct. 61/3 Such homophobia…involves innumerable misconceptions and oversimplifications.

* the very best employee benefit anywhere: MyGuy has lifetime access to UW-Madison's online libraries.

[ithiliana]

Wow--also 1955! Not surprising how many are technical/scientific terms. I like "big bang theory," "New Left," and "zinger" the best!

[jesse_the_k]

zinger -- I wonder if the Celestial Seasonings tea founder are our age?

[ithiliana]

Could be!

*realizes to my horror that I do not have a Tea Icon -- although I am a tea addict (currently Yorkshire Gold and Yorkshire decaf!).

I have a new teapot! I can rectify this horrendous omission in my iconage.....

[jesse_the_k]

I have only three tea icons, although I currently have at least 25 teas. Milk Oolong is rocking my world, with later-day support from Decaf Darjeeling Chai and Roibos Chai, charmed by a health dollop of full-fat Oatly (oat milk, which is OMG great).

[susanreads]

1957 includes: chuffed, clown fish, disco, fab, laser, orthotics, smiley face.

I'm not surprised by Sputnik, but was the floor exercise really only invented in 1957?

[jesse_the_k]

The OED offers a passing reference to acrobatic exercises on the floor in 1927, but their first printed reference is indeed 1957 from the Encyclopedia Brittanica:
The ‘Olympic six’ for men comprise floor exercises, work on the horizontal bar, parallel bars and rings, pommelled horse and vaulting.

[grayduck]

1978 includes Bed-and-Breakfast, pay-per-view, and frequent-flier (and many more that don't have hyphens!). I thought that all three of these must be much older than that!

[jesse_the_k]

So do I! Bed-and-breakfast showed up in lots of my British kids lit and mysteries. The OED claims its first use is 1910 -- guess it took a while to cross the Atlantic.