From the desk of Stephen Petrey ✷
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Today, I began on Unit 21 in Duolingo. This is day 523 learning Korean 한국어 😅 This Unit’s subject is Express Necessity. Cute and useful.
줄 서야 합니다.
You have to stand in line.
죄송하지만 지금 퇴근해야 해요.
I’m sorry but I have to leave work now.
저는 퇴근해서 집에 가야 해요.
I have to leave work and go home.
민지는 숙제를 오늘 해야 해요.
Minji has to do the homework today.
오늘 저녁에 출근해야 해요.
I have to go to work this evening.
의사는 빨리 준비해야 해요.
The doctor needs to prepare quickly.
I’ve been learning Korean for over a year now! It’s crazy I’ve been using Duolingo for over 500 days now. Every day, I try to do at least one lesson. I mostly use Duolingo, but occasionally I’ll use Teuida as well. It’s a beautiful language. I personally find the alphabet straightforward in its design by comparison to other non-Roman languages. I think I’ll start sharing some of the terms I pickup here. This weekend’s lessons were around seasons 🍂 ⛄️ Enjoy!
우리는 겨울에 항상 하키를 해요.
We always play hockey in the winter.
남자는 하키를 전혀 못 합니다.
The man cannot play hockey at all.
저는 전혀 몰라요.
I do not know at all.
눈이 와요!
It is snowing!
공원에는 풀이 너무 길어요.
In the park, the grass is too long.
물이 항상 흘러요.
The water always flows.
어느 계절을 제일 좋아하세요?
Which season do you like the most?
For years, I’ve wanted to get a personal handling on what xº feels like in C. For too long have I used Fahrenheit like a plebeian. I’ve come up empty on a solution for a number of years. Until now! I was googling around the web trying to find a chart from science textbook (or an app or something!). Lo and behold, Mr. Eric Carr saved the day! Thanks Eric. This chart is a lifesaver. A few words from his blog post on Celsius:
For reasons that I’ve mentioned before, I prefer to use SI units whenever possible. For me, it’s about practicality — using SI units makes the math easier, since unit conversion requires few or no “magic numbers” to convert from one unit to another.
Steph Green at Inverse writes:
In Victorian London (but not as we know it), the physically deformed scientist Dr. Godwin Baxter (Willem Dafoe) has lovingly — if irresponsibly — saved the life of a young woman who jumped off a bridge by transplanting the brain of her unborn baby into her own head and re-animating her (yep). He christens her Bella (Emma Stone) and sets to work accelerating her mental development to match her body with the help of Max McCandles (Ramy Youssef), a budding surgeon who comes to love this gleefully unfettered woman-child. Finding herself to be “a flawed, experimenting person” who is into masturbating in a big way, Bella decides that before she is married off to a life of relative imprisonment with Max and her father, she must see and explore the world, setting off for a sexual odyssey with debauched lawyer Duncan Wedderburn (Mark Ruffalo, never more hysterically funny than this).
Holy shit. Sign me up. Full disclosure, I absolutely hated The Lobster. But, I will always give Lanthimos the benefit of the doubt. His films are hard to love for obvious reasons, most notably, his cold and cruel worlds are full of stoicism and absurdity that is just relentless. However, Poor Things appears to have some levity and stylistic frivolity unseen in his previous works (I mean Dogtooth was just so unbelievably bleak). So, I’m a little excited for this one.
The trailer’s description on YouTube reads:
A young boy named Mahito yearning for his mother ventures into a world shared by the living and the dead. There, death comes to an end, and life finds a new beginning. A semi-autobiographical fantasy about life, death, and creation, in tribute to friendship, from the mind of Hayao Miyazaki.
Seemingly ominous! It seems to have all the trappings and flow of a classic Miyazaki films. I’m excited for this one to drop. This couldn’t come any sooner. Looks like the US will see a theatrical release in December 8th.
I came across this really cool project on Hacker News a while back and it’s just been sitting in my bookmarks. It’s an excellent little toy to fiddle with and explore chiptune music from the past. Chiptune.app was created by Matt Montag, and it just the neatest little thing I’ve seen in a long time. I’m going to enjoy spending my downtime browsing through these archives. I may even sample a few tracks with my used OP-1 I picked up earlier this year.
Danny Elfman is a musical genius. The man really needs no introduction. But, for those who are unaware, a small sampling of his talents includes: The Simpsons, Nightmare Before Christmas, several Tim Burton films, Mission Impossible, Spider-Man, MIB, hundreds of collaborators, and that’s just abridged resumé. Batman (1989) was a groundbreaking movie at the time, and the score is iconic to say the least.
I saved an excerpt from his interview with GQ on the Batman score below because it’s simply amazing. Warner Bros. Studios wanted Elfman to collaborate with Prince to make a score for Batman. I don’t hate it, but it would have changed the movie in unimaginable ways I can’t even fathom:
I’ve never done anything harder than Batman because first off, I had to prove myself. You know, it’s like, okay, he’s the quirky comedy guy, and here I am doing like this Batman movie. Understandably, I think they were like, “uh, we need somebody who knows how to do this kind of music.” But, nobody knew what kind of music it was. There really was no superhero music. There was just Superman. And, we said we know we don’t want it to be Superman — John Williams.
And, then there was an element with the producer in the studio of wanting it to be a pop score. There was definitely this moment of like, “Danny, we want you to collaborate with Prince and co-write the score.” And I go, I can’t do that. People go, “you really said that?” I love Prince, but not for that score. I already knew what the score was, and I knew that if I collaborated, he’d be writing tunes, and I’d be orchestrating his tunes, and I would be essentially a glorified arranger rather than a composer, you know. Because he was world famous, and I was still nothing.
I had to walk away. I was so depressed. I felt like I just blew up my own career. And then a month later I got the call saying, Danny, you’re back on. It’s like this gamble paid off. But, it was a miserable period of time. On the other hand, I already heard the music in my head. I knew what it was, and I was determined that that was gonna be the score. The producer was so hard on me, John Peters, and then [they’re finally] he’s in — I think it’s the third presentation. And, I didn’t know how to do presentations.
I was playing this weird music stuff that was all like inspired, you know, crazy. And then Tim says, play the March, “play the March, play the march!”
[That’s] what he called the titles. I go, “oh yeah, I got this piece here.” And of course, now I know, you lead with your headline, obviously. I didn’t really know, or understand that back then. And I put this piece of music on, and John starts conducting in his chair. And then at a certain point he stands up,
and he’s going like this. [Danny waving his arms like a conductor] Tim looks at me and he’s like [Danny laughing], “yeah, we got it.”
Caiwaei Chen writing for rest of world:
Often described as a cross between Pinterest and Instagram, Lemon8 features two side-by-side vertical feeds where users can post images and videos, and adorn them with in-app templates and stickers. Content is sorted across seven categories: food, wellness, beauty, fashion, travel, home, and productivity. Popular post titles include “The time I realized skinny privilege is real,” “That Christian girl in 40 days,” and “Hot Girl Lunch Ideas.”
[…]
But just as users have complained that Xiaohongshu creates unrealistic expectations, especially for women, Lemon8 has drawn criticism for presenting idealized lifestyles. “Every time I refresh the ‘For You’ section, everything is so well-curated and pretty. It’s already exhausting,” a user named Dreamlikediana posted on the app.
Sounds like ByteDance is trying to speed run this social media app into its Instagram-era and forgeo any entertaining of a Tumblr-era crowd. Social networks need a flywheel to create content, and it sounds like Lemon8’s flywheel is Pinterest-esque templates users are passing around. My gut feeling is this won’t last very long. If users want to explore unrealistic expectations in content, they may as well go to where everyone else is suffering this predicament already, on Instagram.
From the u/venkman01 on Reddit’s Product Team:
TL;DR: We are reworking how great content and contributions are rewarded on Reddit. As part of this, we made a decision to sunset coins (including Community coins for moderators) and awards (including Medals, Premium Awards, and Community Awards), which also impacts some existing Reddit Premium perks. Starting today, you will no longer be able to purchase new coins, but all awards and existing coins will continue to be available until September 12, 2023.
Many eons ago, Reddit introduced something called Reddit Gold. Gold then evolved, and we introduced new awards including Reddit Silver, Platinum, Ternium, and Argentium. And the evolution continued from there. While we saw many of the awards used as a fun way to recognize contributions from your fellow redditors, looking back at those eons, we also saw consistent feedback on awards as a whole. First, many don’t appreciate the clutter from awards (50+ awards right now, but who’s counting?) and all the steps that go into actually awarding content. Second, redditors want awarded content to be more valuable to the recipient.
While I never fully understood Reddit Gold as a product (and neither did Reddit it seems), it was much beloved by the community. Gilding fellow redditors comments felt good and was honestly pretty novel at the time. It was also an awesome indicator of high-quality content. Seems like Reddit is likely killing off this feature because gilded content would otherwise identify high-quality content to would-be web crawlers, and Reddit wants a piece of the pie.
I think coins and micro-transcations certainly can be a successful model for creators (see Twitch). But Reddit, has historically never understood their general userbase and has historically never leaned into empowering creators/powerusers. Each year, they shed more and more classic nostalgic features while product inherits tech debt. Coins and Rewards were certainly more useful than RPAN (yikes). Honestly, some of the best features are user-generated, maybe Reddit is making a grave mistake here.
Umar Shakir for The Verge writes:
If you’re using the new macOS Sonoma beta, you might want to know about a glorious new bridge between ecosystems that lets Mac Chrome users connect with their iCloud passwords. Apple has updated its iCloud Passwords Chrome extension with a new feature that lets you directly pull passwords from iCloud, keeping you from needing to open Safari or migrate your iCloud passwords to another password manager.
This is kinda huge. For too long has the ecosystem of saved website passwords been segmented. Choosing between Chrome’s Password vault and the iCloud Keychain was basically forcing me to ask myself, “do I want to use Chrome right now, or do I need to do this in Safari?” Having to remember which one had my updated credentials was dizzying. Excited for the future!
Note if you try to install this extension without installing the macOS Beta you’ll see this:
No doubt about it. Threads launched with gargantuan success last week. Twitter is getting absolutely gobsmacked. Threads growth isn’t even close to slowing down either. Adam Mosseri (head of Instagram) has been very vocal and active on Threads. If you haven’t joined yet, or you’re holding off, I have some good news for you. He’s been chiming in and keeping us posted on planned features that may sweeten your eventual arrival. We’re not sure what has been deprioritized versus what is imminently coming soon, but this is list of topics Adam has mentioned (so far) in some replies:
Post by @mosseriView on Threads
Siddharth Venkataramakrishnan and Akila Quinio writing Financial Times:
A flaw in Revolut’s payment system in the US allowed criminals to steal more than $20mn of its funds over several months last year before the company could close the loophole, according to multiple people with knowledge of the episode.
[…]
The problem stemmed from differences between European and US payment systems, which meant that when certain transactions were declined Revolut would erroneously refund accounts, handing them its own money, according to three people with knowledge of the situation.
Yikes. Revolut doesn’t seem so revolutionary, now does it?
In 2016, scientists confirmed the existence of gravitational waves when observing data from two massive black holes merging. These ripples were absolutely tiny but were instrumental in confirming the astronomical theory. Since then, it was believed these ripples should be measurable everywhere in the universe. The idea congealed that some sort of “gravitational wave background” should be detectable elsewhere. But where?
Theorists believed that pulsars could provide us with additional insights on this background gravitational map of the universe. Scientists had to gather data from several radio telescopes and dig through 15 years of pulsar data to paint this picture. Joel Achenbach and Victoria Jaggard writing for The Washington Post:
The claim that telescopes across the planet have seen signs of a “gravitational wave background” has sent a thrill through the astrophysics community, which has been buzzing for days in anticipation of the papers that were unveiled late Wednesday. The discovery seems to affirm an astounding implication of Albert Einstein’s general theory of relativity that until now has been far too subtle to detect.
[…]
NANOGrav gathered data from 68 pulsars using the Green Bank Telescope in rural West Virginia, the 27 telescopes of the Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array in New Mexico, and the now-defunct Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico.
Teams in other countries also observed the same measurable background gravitational waves from these pulsars as predicted. These independent detections affirm Einstein’s general theory of relatively. Huge convergence. This is a historical moment of consilience!
Taylor Hatmaker at TechCrunch writes:
Threads passed 2 million signups in its first two hours live in the App Store and shows no signs of slowing down. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg noted the milestone on his Threads account.
At this rate, Twitter is dead in the water. Threads has serious staying power. There’s over 2.5B accounts on Instagram. The barrier to signing up for a Threads account is to simply open Instagram. Organic use of Instagram will naturally lead you to creating a profile. It’s that easy. This is where Zuckerberg thrives: growth strategy.
In 2019, Instagram and Facebook launched a standalone messaging app called Threads. It was originally designed to be a sort-of Snapchat group-messaging clone. This was all before Facebook’s big name change and pivot to Meta. Ergo, before Zuckerberg decided to invest in building out the Metaverse. Despite having millions in daily active users, Facebook decided to ultimately shut down Threads:
The app today is ranked No. 214 in the Photo & Video category on the U.S. App Store — an indication of its continued failure to catch on with a broader audience. It’s also rated a middling 3.1 stars across 2,500 reviews as users complain about its usability, layout, missing features and glitches. To date, Threads has seen approximately 13.7 million global installs from across the App Store and Google Play, according to estimates from app intelligence firm Sensor Tower.
This is what it looked like. Half-messenger app. Half-Snapchat clone:
Once Threads disappeared, it was presumed to never return. I figured it was destined for the Silicon Valley graveyard of failed startups/projects (RIP Google Reader). But then, something wild happened. In October of 2022, Elon Musk decided to buy Twitter. This was meaningful because, ever since Twitter has been under Musk’s ownership, he’s basically nosedived the company into oblivion. This has left Twitter extremely vulnerable to competing social networking apps. There have been many cycles of users leaving for these Twitter-clones.
Every decision he’s made has been a kiss of death: marketing, engineering, public relations, human resources, and so on. It’s been a nightmare for former employees, and a horror show contractors. To be blunt, Musk is devoid of compassion, and the first 90 days alone were not good for anyone. Ex-employees are currently in a arbitration lawsuit against Twitter and Musk and many having never received their severance. Lastly, the latest micro-managing efforts from Musk, have essentially broken Twitter.
Instagram’s Threads app has been under development for some time now. At least the public has known about it since early March. Internally, it was understood to be called Project 92. It has an unmistakable design language. It’s very Instagram-esque
From The Verge earlier this month:
One of Meta’s top executives showed employees a preview of the company’s upcoming Twitter competitor during a companywide meeting today that was watched by The Verge.
While Musk has been squandering cash and resources, Zuckerberg has been building. In what appears to be a stroke of serendipity, Meta & Instagram (aka the new Facebook) is launching the new Threads app this week amidst Twitter’s latest troubles.
Threads’ (re)debut is happening just as users flock from Twitter (again) to competitors. But this time, it feels different. It feels more permanent this time around. A lot of users are very done with Twitter. Thousands of people are leaving Twitter behind for Mastodon in part because of Musk’s questionable rate-limiting nonsense. Both Threads and Mastodon are powered by an open-source protocol called ActivityPub. Which essentially makes them interoperable social networks. This interoperability, is not universally celebrated on the fediverse. Personally, I believe this will be good and healthy for the web. But that remains to be proven. This could all go sideways next week. According to reports, your Instagram handle will be your Threads username: @example@threads.net.
This is a huge blow against Twitter. The headwinds are strong for Threads. Twitter has been on a losing streak, and chances are Musk will only make this worse. Instagram even put together a countdown on its site.
It also was briefly on the Google Play Store earlier this week on July 1. It’s gone now, but will presumably be back on the Play Store later this week. Apple’s App Store on the other hand has it listed as a pre-order right now:
What started as one kind of social network clone has become another kind of clone altogether! Who would have thunk. The drama, the suspense! It’s heating up, and I suspect this battle for the new “town square app” is just getting started. I’ll be sitting over here with the popcorn 🍿
Turns one of the side-effects of blocking traffic from reading tweets, is it will tank your SEO and search appearance. Twitter is forcing all unregistered traffic to login or register. If your content is not indexable, it will hurt your SEO scores. This mechanic is well understood by web and software engineers. My best guess is all the pandering and feet-kissing people in his orbit neglected to tell him the consequences of this to keep Elon’s temper tantrums at bay. Making tweets visible to registered users only and installing rate-limits is a terrible product choice that affects growth strategies negatively. Don’t take my word for it, the numbers speak for themselves.
Barry Schwartz for SEO Roundtable writes:
On Friday, June 30th at about 1pm ET, Twitter had 471 million URLs indexed in Google Search according to this site command.
Then yesterday, July 2nd, I snapped another screenshot and Google had 34% fewer URLs indexed, 309 million, that is 162 million fewer URLs indexed
Then this morning, I grabbed another screenshot, and it was down now to 227 million URLs indexed, that is about 52% less than what was indexed on Friday
[…]
Twitter URLs indexed by Friday to today went from about 471 million URLs to 227 million, a drop of about 52%. I wonder what type of impact this has on its traffic from Google Search, if any.
Musk is an idiot.
I found myself going down a rabbit hole of NASA photography today. Gemini XII was part of the Gemini Space Program that ran between 1961–1966. Gemini XII specifically was a crewed mission, commanded by James A. Lovell (who flew on Gemini VII previously). Buzz Aldrin was the co-pilot. Gemini XII was a special mission. It was the concluding mission of Gemini. Objectives included: docking, extra-vehicular activity (EVA), using propulsion systems to change orbit in order to demonstrate automatic reentry.
If you think about it, all three of those objectives are tantamount to every orbital mission. But Gemini XII was only the 18th crewed American spaceflight ever. So, this was considered early days! We were still figuring out the kinks to manned spaceflight.
Now, the Gemini XII was equipped with several cameras. One of which was the Hasselblad Super-Wide Camera 70mm. The other was a Maurer Space Camera 70 mm. Here’s some of the Super Wide photography Buzz and Lovell shot from within the Gemini spacecraft and several photos from outside the craft while conducting EVA.
I’m particularly taken by the refracted sunbeams visible through Earth’s atmosphere. What a beautiful sight.
View the rest of Gemini’s (and Mercury or Apollo’s for that matter) photography here.
The One Ring, is a singular, one-of-one Magic: The Gathering card introduced in The Lord of the Rings: Tales of Middle-earth set that launched on June 23rd. This whole LOTR/MTG quest for The One Ring has serious Willy Wonka vibes. Apparently, it’s already been graded and the ring bearer has already retained an attorney:
Should the bearer of The One Ring choose to accept it, a reseller in Spain is offering more than $2 million, plus a trip to Europe, in exchange for the card. On Friday, a New York-based reseller called Dave & Adam’s had reportedly taken receipt of the card, but is not able to exceed its previously offered bounty of $1 million. The owner is accepting serious offers via its attorney through an email address, hello@thenotablegroup.com, which appears to be managed by a Canadian marketing firm.
I have to say, it’s pretty sick to look at. Also, the Artifact’s abilities aren’t half-bad.
Elon decided to break Twitter today. Now, this is not the first time he’s danced with breaking features of Twitter. I would link to all the other times but instead I’ll just link to The Verge’s excellent story stream of the entire saga since the buyout. Apparently he decided to “rate-limit” tweet reads for logged-in users, and to paywall the rest of the public.
The real story here is Twitter is trying to cut costs and run away from cloud providers. In all likelihood, these recent changes from Musk are mitigation efforts to prevent their cloud costs from exploding. I mean, what did Musk think was going to happen? Allowing two hour video content uploads has ginormous cost implications. Regardless, they have decided to walk away from huge data contracts and aren’t paying their cloud bills.
Twitter hosts some services on its server and houses others on the cloud platforms of Amazon (AMZN.O) and Google, Platformer said.
In March, Amazon warned Twitter that it would withhold advertising payments because of the company’s outstanding bills to Amazon Web Services for cloud computing services, according to the Information.
Since Musk’s acquisition, Twitter has cut costs dramatically and laid off thousands of employees. Musk ordered the company to cut infrastructure costs, such as spending on cloud services, by $1 billion, a source had told Reuters in November.
Totally normal operations for a properly functioning company. Nothing to see here folks. Move along.
As explained in Team Ricochet’s latest blog, these hallucinations are decoy characters that can only be detected by cheaters, but are undetectable by legitimate players. To the cheaters, though, they look and behave like real players on the opposing team; they’re not AI characters, but clones of another active user in the match, mimicking that player’s movement. They also appear genuine to the cheat hardware and software being used, supplying the cheating player with all the illicit information they would expect.
Not only do these hallucinations make the game unplayable for cheaters, but it also marks them with a Scarlet Letter. Richochet’s systems can then either ban these players or keep them in lobbies to test other anti-cheat measures on these unsuspecting losers.
Even more deliciously, the hallucinations can be used to detect and verify cheaters. If Team Ricochet suspects a player of cheating, they can place a hallucination near them that’s only visible to their cheat tools. If the player then interacts with the cloned hallucination in any way, they’ve just “self-identified” as a cheater, in a poetic self-own.
I was re-organizing some of my bookmarks and discovered some old gems. Among them was an amazing design resource I have long forgotten about: Logobook – Discover the world’s finest logos, symbols and trademarks. Note: unfortunately this website does not have a SSL Certificate so it’s only accessible over http
This past week, Tottenham completed a speedy transfer. Spurs fans (present company included), are no doubt excited for new prospects. Enter, James Maddison, a young Right Winger from Leicester. Flexible and undeniably talented, it’s been suggested the team is exploring his support potential for Kane and Son. Charlie Eccleshare at the Athletic writes:
By Wednesday, Maddison was in north London for his medical. Spurs’ new head coach Ange Postecoglou will no doubt be delighted that one of his main targets has been purchased so speedily. And while it’s been assumed Maddison will play as a No 8 in a 4-3-3, it’s been suggested Postecoglou could use him as a No 10 behind a front two of Harry Kane and Son Heung-min (more on that later).
Talent and speediness of his transfer aside, he has lovely Harry Potter tattoos! Among them are the lightning bolt, the Elder Wand and the 9 3/4 numerals. So awesome.
Marie Patino, Leonardo Nicoletti and Sophie Alexander for Bloomberg:
A Bloomberg analysis of the use of primary private planes among some of the richest people in the world finds that Musk comes out on top. For example, his private jet took more than twice as many trips as Ellison’s in 2022.
The roughly 2,112 metric tons of greenhouse gas emitted in 2022 from flight’s on Musk’s personal jet — not the Tesla or SpaceX corporate jets — is a tiny fraction of the 8.4 million metric tons that Tesla estimates its customers avoided emitting in 2021. But it’s more than 140 times the average American’s carbon footprint and, to make it up, a Tesla Model 3 would have to replace an average premium internal-combustion car for 7 million miles.
On average, a normal person emits about 4 tons of carbon per year. This asshole contributed over 500x the amount of CO2 in 2022. Some additional context, Musk is infamous for creating problems for himself, micro-manages his teams and can’t seem to figure out teleconferencing. Musk continues to maintain a ridiculous illusion that he truly cares about the environment and is concerned for the future of humanity. It is all a facade. If he truly gave one iota, he could simply adjust his schedule to be more remote-friendly or I don’t know, maybe not take a private flight every day. Musk is and always has self-righteous silver-spooned spoiled piece of of shit.
Another fantastic episode from NYT Cooking’s Mystery Menu with Sohla and Ham. I was pleasantly surprised that processing durian and cooking it, neutralizes the aromatics, but elevates savory flavors in dishes! Also surprised to see acid and durian making a great pairing. Also, Sohla has explored some variations on the kolar pitha before, but this durian kolar pitha looks so good!
Chuck Close created 12 large-scale portraits for 86 St that are based on the artist’s painstakingly detailed photo-based paintings. His various painting techniques have been interpreted in 10 works as mosaic, and in two as ceramic tile. The people portrayed represent the variety of individuals that pass though the MTA system, and are chiefly cultural figures that have frequently been subjects in his artistic career spanning over half a century, including Philip Glass, Zhang Huan, Kara Walker, Alex Katz, Cecily Brown, Cindy Sherman, and Lou Reed, as well as two distinct self-portraits.
MTA Arts & Design, 86 St (Q) Subway Portraits
Unless YouTube has a killer app, I cannot see the reasoning behind even testing games, much less launching them to the public. Netflix has a selection of great mobile games that anyone with a subscription can download for free, and yet hardly anyone does.
If Netflix is having a hard time with their mobile game adoption, I think the writing is on the wall for this one. YouTube is going to have a difficult time competing with basically the entire web and App Store’s gigantic selection of free games.
I wonder if YouTube will make certain titles available to Premium subscribers only. Perhaps the maximum saturation of premium subscribers has been met, and product is thinking up new features for YouTube Premium.
Deb Amlen, writing for the New York Times
Speaking of not taking criticism well, we would be remiss if we didn’t mention one of the most hostile “Oh yeah?” insults of the period. The Roman author Catullus’s poem “Carmen 16” was a response to two men, Furius and Aurelius, who were going around telling people that Catullus’s poetry was soft, a euphemism for effeminate. (This was considered an insult in those days.)
Catullus, who had apparently woken up on the wrong side of the bed that morning, proceeded to let the men know in no uncertain terms that not only had they missed the point of his work, but that he was willing to inflict great bodily harm on them to prove it.
The poem opens with a criminal threat that is so filthy and violent that it can’t be included here. And, humorously enough, his main point — after threatening the two men — was that sometimes softly rendered messages could be more erotic than openly prurient writing.
“Carmen 16” is available online for those who are inclined to search for it.
I am indeed inclined and then some! Translated from the Latin, here’s the hilarious and sexually hostile insult Catullus hurled at Furius and Aurelius:
I will sodomize you and face-fuck you,
bottom Aurelius and catamite Furius,
you who think, because my poems
are sensitive, that I have no shame.
For it’s proper for a devoted poet to be moral
himself, [but] in no way is it necessary for his poems.
In point of fact, these have wit and charm,
if they are sensitive and a little shameless,
and can arouse an itch,
and I don’t mean in boys, but in those hairy old men
who can’t get it up.
Because you’ve read my countless kisses,
you think less of me as a man?
I will sodomize you and face-fuck you.
Dang! Catullus is ready to square up with Furius and Aurelius!
Sam Stone for Bon Appetit writes:
Thankfully, Bricia Lopez and Javier Cabral, authors of Asada, a new cookbook celebrating the expansive world of Mexican grilling, have a simple solution: an onion.
Here’s their go-to method: To start, heat your grill to high (figure 450–550°). Getting the grate hot will partially do your work for you by burning off some of those clingers. Next, slice an onion in half—any kind will do, be it yellow, white, or red—but Lopez and Cabral recommend “the biggest, cheapest white onion you can find” since a larger onion will cover more surface area. Stab a large fork into the uncut side of the halved onion, then run it up and down the grate.
This technique, dubbed a piece of “Mexican ingenuity” by Lopez and Cabral, uses the natural acids in the onion to loosen and remove bits of grease and pieces of char. Onions also contain a compound called allicin, the same chemical that brings you to tears when you’re chopping. This compound has antimicrobial properties that leave your grill spick-and-span.
An absolutely fantastic suggestion for cleaning the grill.
I’m reminded of my service industry days. We used to clean panini-press grills with a similar approach. The presses weren’t non-stick and while not as hot as outdoor grills, they’d still get filthy with carbon. We’d leave set the temperature as hot as possible and set some ice cubes in between the press. Then we’d turn off the presses. The heat would melt the cubes into boiling water and steam vapor would lift caked-on cheese, bread bits, carbon and anything else that got left burnt onto them. From here, it was pretty simple. Just let the heat dissipate and using steel wool to brush any remaining bits into the grease catch.