​YouTube channel Journey To The Microcosmos is a calming, beautiful, and highly informative trip into the world of rotifers, tardigrades, nematodes, and paramecia. I’ve learned a lot. Sometimes they will even release several minutes of footage with music instead of the regular show. It almost makes me want to spend a thousand dollars on a good microscope.

Panera Bread has pizza now. The chipotle bacon chicken pizza is amazing. It has CILANTRO.

​Are things getting worse or better? The numbers seem to indicate dramatic improvements worldwide in standard of living, life expectancy, economic freedom, environmental and resource management, crime rates, literacy, and much more. Things have been getting measurably better since the late 1700s. Much of this improvement only happened in the last twenty years.

Those at HumanProgress.org paint the picture better than I can. They provide graphs and link to optimistic news articles from all over. Poverty and disease are being eliminated. New discoveries and technologies are made all the time. They make you feel good. It’s a perspective that is often lacking, but necessary. For our mental health, we must temper our pessimism with optimism (and vice versa).

Sometimes things can seem to get worse because of our hardwired sensitivity to danger, because we tend to become acclimated to improvements, because good news tends to be incremental and slow, and most of all because of the media we consume, but numbers don’t lie.

I do wonder, though, about the details. The way things are interlinked, it often doesn’t matter how well everything else is going if one important piece of the puzzle breaks. Sometimes, this is the piece you never thought to measure. Also, good things can cause bad things and the relationships are complex. Also, I know that data crunchers have been caught lying before.

Rationally, I can see many ways that things could go wrong, and many reasons to think going wrong is likely (based on understanding of fundamental processes), but empirically, I see that my scariest predictions are almost always wrong and things tend to work out in the end. Somewhere in the complexity of many things happening at once, good happens.

I also know that bad things can be harnessed to create good, so that even when bad happens, it isn’t really bad. It’s complicated.

So, what’s new in the grocery store salsa aisle in 2020?

Mrs. Renfro’s Craft Beer Salsa:
This medium salsa tastes a lot like bit-too-salty tomatoes with no detectable beer. It contains tomatoe, onion, Rahr Texas Red American Amber Beer, brown sugar, jalapeno pepper, chipotle pepper, ancho pepper, guajillo pepper, cilantro, garlic, citric acid, and corn starch for some reason.
 
Mrs. Renfro’s Habanero Salsa:
This hot salsa is fantastic and goes with everything. I never get tired of it. The quirky habanero flavor comes through and compliments the sweet tomatoes. It contains tomatoe, jalapeno, green chile, onion, garlic, cilantro, habanero, vinegar, and corn starch.
 
Mrs. Renfro’s Green Salsa:
This salsa is slimy and contains only jalapeno, which is probably why it tastes that way, but who can be sure?
 
Mrs. Renfro’s Black Bean Salsa:
This salsa is good, but nothing special. It has black beans.
 
Mrs. Renfro’s Ghost Pepper Salsa:
It’s very hot and kind of smoky, reminding me of chipotle. Then again, it might have been my tongue that was smoking…

Jardine’s Texasalsa:
This salsa just tastes like tomatoes in vinegar. It contains tomatoes, jalapeno, vinegar, garlic, onion, green chile, cilantro, and salt.
 
Jardine’s Ghost Pepper Salsa:
This salsa I thought was a bit runny and very hot. The lime was detectable and it tasted otherwise like bit-too-salty tomatoes. It contains tomatoes, cilantro, garlic, ghost chile, onion, lime juice, and potatoe starch.
 
Field Day Garlic Cilantro Salsa:
The garlic and cumin were quite noticeable in this salsa. I certainly wasn’t complaining. It contains tomatoe, onion, cilantro, lime, cumin, black pepper, garlic, jalapeno, and cider vinegar.
 
Siesta Salsa Bacon Salsa:
This very mild, fine-chopped salsa tastes just like tomatoes and bacon! There are no bacon bits in it, but the essence permeates the vegetables. It goes well paired with meat.
 
Taste of Inspirations Three-Bean Salsa:
This salsa is mislabeled! It is actually chili! Let me start over…

This hot chili is wonderful and can be used in any application that calls for chili. It contains red beans, white beans, black beans, red bell pepper, tomatoe, onion, jalapeno, lime, garlic, and cilantro.
 
Enjoy!

2020 was a strange year. I hardly wrote or travelled, but I did spend a lot of time on YouTube and stumbled across some relatively unknown musical talent (at least in the US). One artist led to others showing up in my recommendations until I had listened to them all. Below are the top thirteen in ascending order of rating.

Faun: While I would never say any of their songs are among my favorites, there is a certain fairy-elf atmosphere to the sounds that would make them great movie background music. The video for Walpurgisnacht makes this clear. The language is German.

Gealdyr: Borrowing from Nordic and Celtic culture, Gealdyr sings mostly repetitive simple songs about nature, life, and death. It makes good background music. I like Kauna and Deyr Fe. The language is old Norse.

Sabine Hossenfelder: Theoretical physicist and professional pessimist of the direction science by day, Sabine has put together some decent lyrics and simple beats. The videos are clearly homemade, but the sound to my untrained ear is as good as anything else. I especially like When They Ask Us, This Is How I Pray, Theories Of Everything, and Ivory Tower. The language is (usually) English.

Isla Vista: This group sings of God and his love in a style reminiscent of Sam Smith or Marvin Gaye. Captured is a good example of this. The language is English.

Beabadoobee: Soft, sweet, quiet, cute, and pensive, Beabadoobee sings of ordinary things and extraordinary love. I like Coffee the most. Also good are Dance With Me, 1999, Ceilings, Everest, Art Class, and The Way I Spoke. The language is English.

Erutan: Erutan sings songs inspired by fairy tales and stuff. Tarts and The Willow Maid are good. The language is English.

The Hu: No, they aren’t The Who, but they are at least as good. Blending Mongolian throat singing with modern rock, they sing of the glory days of the Mongolian Empire. Yuve Yuve Yu, Wolf Totem, and Shoog Shoog are good songs. The language is (usually) Mongolian (of course).

Ella Roberts: Ella sings traditional folk songs from Ireland and Scotland. Her version of The Bonnie Banks Of Loch Lomond is amazing. The language is Scottish English.

Kati Ran: Her other songs don’t touch me much, but Suurin is a full-blast power song that can make anybody feel capable of anything – and I thought that even before I saw the translated lyrics. The end sounds like someone running for their lives. The video is awesome too. I never get tired of it. The language is Finnish.

Blackbriar: An excellent example of female-led metal, I really like I’d Rather Burn and Beautiful Delirium. Arms of The Ocean, Until Eternity, and Ready To Kill are okay too. The band is Dutch, but the language is English.

Rachel Rose Mitchell: Singing along to what can only be described as symphonic rock, Rachel sings songs powerful, sad, or sometimes a bit creepy. I really like Alice, which somehow makes me think of a character who has defeated every enemy in every battle and yet still lost things most people will never understand. I also really like Thorns, Something You Don’t Know, Carnival, The Ticketman, Lantern In The Night, Wither, River Run Red, Farewell Song, Glow In The Dark, The Hollow, Everything You Want, and Collateral. Just listen to the entire playlist. The language is English.

Oonagh: German pop sensation Oonagh is best known for her catchy songs inspired by Lord of The Rings, such as Orome, Eldamar, Silmaril, Numenor, Tolo Nan, Arien, Ainulindale, Yalume, and Gaa. The verses are in German, but the choruses are often in Tolkien Elvish. Even the videos are works of art and Oonagh’s bubbly personality and natural good looks put the frosting on the cake. She also sings many other good songs, such as Eine Neue Zeit and Zauberwald, and has even collaborated with Celtic Woman to create the fairy magic that is Tir Na Nog. The woman is the best thing to come out of Germany since Albert Einstein and puts even The Beatles to shame – and yet she’s still second on this list…

Eivor Palsdottr: Sometimes creepy, sometimes lovely, sometimes nostalgic, her music sometimes reminding me of Paul Simon, Ringo Star, or a James Bond intro, Eivor’s voice is always beautiful. Common themes include the ocean and lost love. My favorite songs include Surrender, Into The Mist, Rain, Far Away, True Love, Undo Your Mind, Green Garden, Let It Come, and I know. Most of her work has English and Faeroese versions. One song in which I think I actually prefer the Faeroese is Mjorkaflokar – not that there is an English version. Why isn’t she more popular?
 
What a great year!

Nudge coffee butter is what it sounds like: a mixture of vegetable oil, sugar, and finely ground coffee beans that you can spread on toast like Nutella. It’s not bad, but I don’t think I’ll buy it again. I prefer sunflower butter or cashew butter. Almond butter and peanut butter are good too.

Red’s Burritos are awesome. They are expensive, but well worth the price. The tortillas are never wet and soggy. Nor are they ever dry and crumbly. They seem to be held together by some sort of delicious starchy glue.

The flavors in the fillings are so strong I think the company must make use of technology to isolate and amplify the specific compounds involved in taste, infusing them back in the product. Sugar, salt, or MSG can also enhance flavors, but everyone does that and yet somehow these burritos are special. I don’t understand how they do it.

Bean, Rice, &Cheddar is probably my third favorite. It comes in a whole wheat tortilla, which is usually a no-no for a burrito, but in this case it works. The combination of brown rice and soft pinto beans is perfect. Beef, Bean, &Cheddar is pretty good too.

Philly Steak &Cheese is probably my second favorite. In this one especially, the company has really captured the essence of steak. The pieces are juicy and packed with flavor. The bits of peppers and onions present are also juicy and packed with flavor. They are never burned or overcooked. They are never mushy from being frozen (ice crystals destroy cell walls). I have yet to find a chewy onion skin in any of them. I have no idea how they do it. Steak &Cheddar is pretty good too.

Chicken, Cilantro, &Lime is probably my first favorite. In addition to chicken, cilantro (<3), and lime, it contains brown rice, black beans, and cheddar. It’s great. Chicken &Cheddar is good too.

BTW, cilantro is my favorite vegetable. I like anything with cilantro on it or in it. I have recently learned that there are actually people out there that don’t like it. How? They claim it tastes like soap. Well, if anyone can find soap out there that tastes like cilantro I would love to sample it! I just might take up swearing like a sailor so I can get my mouth washed out with it. Bring it!

I am less impressed with the Egg &Cheddar burrito and the Canadian Bacon, Egg, &Three Cheese burrito. The egg is too wet, there isn’t enough cheese, and the Canadian Bacon (or what civilized people call ham) seemed to have a faint bitter taste. Overall, they were okay, but nothing special.

The oddball of Red’s line is Cheese Quesadilla. It contains a mix of cheddar, mozzarella, and pepper jack cheese with just the right amount of pepper bits. The cheese is a bit on the chewy side but very tasty. It might be my fourth favorite. Strangely, these are always smaller than the others. The tortilla is the same size, but wrapped around less product. Sometimes, I find one end broken off so that all the cheese oozes out when I microwave it. I don’t understand how they do it.

All of these burritos are the same size – too big for a snack and too small for a meal. To make a meal one has to combine them with something, such as an apple or a carrot. A Red’s Burrito and a banana make a good meal too. Better yet, TWO Red’s Burritos make an even better meal!

 
Of course, some burritos are larger. Taco Bell’s Grilled Stuffed Burrito is the size of two meals. When I am out on errands it makes a good simultaneous breakfast/lunch. It also has cilantro (<3). Delicious!

 
In contrast, Amy’s Burritos are nothing. They too are expensive, but not worth it. The only kind I like is the Indian Samosa Wrap. This consists of a whole wheat tortilla wrapped around curry potatoes. There are also trace amounts of peas and tomatoe paste. Overall, it’s pretty good if you like curry.

 
Of course, the cheap standby is always Tina’s Burritos. My favorite is the Beef &Bean. I never get tired of it. I like to microwave it on one side for one minute, followed by 35 seconds on the other, before I stuff pieces of cheddar inside to soften while I pour Herdez’s Guacamole Salsa over the whole thing and eat it with a fork.

Herdez’s Guacamole Salsa is a smooth, creamy, light green sauce with dark green flecks in it. Its dominant flavor is that of tomatillos, which compliment the mashed pinto beans in a burrito perfectly. Other ingredients include cilantro (<3), lime, avocado, onion, and green chiles. It has the perfect amount of heat.

Tina’s Red Hot Beef is pretty good too. Like the other, the filling is mostly beans. I will either eat it plain or stuff cheddar in it and pour on Buffalo sauce (also <3).



Edit: Since this post I have discovered even more burritos. Red’s turkey sausage, egg, &three cheese burrito and Red’s chicken chorizo egg &three cheese burrito are amazing – even better than the chicken lime – my new favorites. Red’s chicken &Mexican style street corn on the other hand is very meh. Tina’s beef &bean/green chili is also good.

I’ve been distracted by YouTube a lot over the past few months. When I’m too tired to write and don’t feel like reading, sometimes I like to waste time watching old SNL skits, though most of them are so dumb I end up feeling worse than before I started, and then I feel guilty for wasting time on top of it.

Fortunately, when I stay on YouTube long enough, following recommendation after recommendation based on what I’ve viewed, eventually I find some gems. In the past few months, I’ve been watching amateur scientists do backyard experiments. Most of the experiments are done knowing ahead of time exactly what will happen, but in many cases the specific details are new and they are adding to the general knowledge of the world.

The Backyard Scientist explodes melons with molten salt or casts delightfully artistic sculptures by pouring molten aluminum into them. He also works on a lot of mechanical projects. My favorite video is his explanation of how he made a Nerf dart break the sound barrier.

The Slow Mo Guys use a powerful slow-motion camera to capture extremely brief events, such as the shattering of a Pyrex cup, the spinning apart of a record, the overinflating of a football, the collision of fruit with other fruit, and the driving of a truck into a bridge. They have also created a fire tornado, played tennis with jelly, explained how a television works, and dropped ink into water to watch how it dispersed. Very pretty!

The King Of Random plays with dry ice, gallium, tastes gross stuff, boils kinetic sand, and makes art from milk and soap or by mixing superglue and baking soda.

The Action Lab is probably the best in this category. His videos are the most polished, he explains the science behind everything, and he carefully measures his results so that something is learned. He teaches chemistry, astrophysics, quantum mechanics, how to make very dark spots, how the brain perceives colors that don’t exist, checks whether spiders get dizzy, cooks with sound, tries to take the color out of Coke, and explains why you can’t melt wood. My favorite video – and definitely the coolest thing I have seen all year – is his attempt to make black fire.

In addition to these four channels, there are many others who do less precise experiments, with little foreplanning, research, or followup. Their experiments are less scientific but no less fun.

How Ridiculous drops objects from tall places onto other objects to see what it takes to break them and which object is toughest. They have dropped anvils, bowling balls, bicycles, and armchairs onto trampolines, bulletproof glass, and oobleck (a non-Newtonian fluid made from cornstarch and water). They also do dart tricks and play around with the magnus effect (the reason that spinning objects moving through a medium feel a sideways force).

Jogwheel asks, “Is it a good idea to microwave this?” Usually the answer is no. They have microwaved eggs, glowsticks, and compact disks. This is the only channel of this type I was aware of before this year and I went back for nostalgia reasons. They no longer upload on a regular basis.

Sometimes I just want to see something destroyed – and who doesn’t love a satisfying crunch? There are many channels to serve this function and I am sure I have not found them all. They are also very similar to each other to the point that one could probably claim trademark infringement. Most of the hosts do not show their faces or speak and they play the same music while objects are destroyed. They use the same shredding machine often. They often replay the same event from different angles, including from below, and have slow-motion capability. The videos will be labeled as featuring one thing, but then be compilations between ten and twenty minutes long featuring multiple things.

MrGear not only uses a shredding machine, but also sulfuric acid, liquid nitrogen, hot knives, and the infamous thousand-degree metal ball. Watermelons and Nutella jars are favorite objects of his wrath. He also posts many videos showing how to build various things in unconventional ways with limited supplies. He posts crafts, pranks, magic tricks, life hacks (some better than others), and creative ways to tie shoelaces.

Life Hacks & Experiments feeds his shredding machine with toys, food, batteries, bullets, and household items. He also uses a chainsaw, waffle iron, thousand-degree metal ball, hydraulic press (heated and unheated), and hydraulic guillotine. He posts life hacks too.

The Crusher uses many of the same tools to destroy many of the same types of things, plus he will also play the video in reverse to show things come back together. Gojzer does the same. Experiment At Home does the same. Collectively, they destroy pencils, pens, Rubik’s cubes, lighters, phones, a VHS tape, an (American) football, a bowling ball, breakfast cereal, crackers, and Orbeez. Will It Survive? has fewer videos than the others, my favorite of which is Jawbreaker Meets Blowtorch.

It was in watching these videos that I was first exposed to the term ASMR, which stands for Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response. Apparently, just as most people feel an unpleasant tingly feeling when nails are dragged across a chalkboard, some people feel a pleasant tingly feeling when hearing whispering, crunching, or other sounds, or watch something very repetitive and methodical. It is believed to have therapeutic properties. Unfortunately, it seems to have no effect on me.

Interestingly, there are those who associate the feeling-inducing videos with sexual eroticism, though there are others who deny any connection. It just goes to show that pornography is very hard to define and what might be pornography to one person can be totally devoid of such associations to another. I have also heard for the first time this year the terms “food porn” and “inspiration porn,” which further dilute the definition into total meaninglessness.

Press Tube does a lot of metal casting and also uses a kinetic press to destroy things, meaning he drops a large weight from a tall height. He has also fed his shredding machine real lava!

The best in this category is Hydraulic Press Channel. It is run by a husband-wife team from Finland who place objects under a hydraulic press and crush them. They are the cutest couple ever and bring a huge amount of enthusiasm to everything they do. They have exploded wood and ball bearings. They have made a knife out of compressed toilet paper and a frying pan from compressed aluminum foil. Using a piston head with extrusion holes in it, they have turned hair into powder, gummy bears into gummy worms, found the fastest way to make salsa and coleslaw, unmixed oobleck, and made beautiful worms out of soap, crayons, ballistic gelatin, play dough, and candles.

They also have a second channel called Beyond The Press, on which they seem to like to blow things up. It is just as good. They have a third channel called Anni Vuohensilta, on which they vlog about their life. They are fun people.

Sometimes I’m happy that I wasted time.

While plant snap works amazing wonders even under less-than-ideal conditions, sometimes it just does dumb things. I don’t know if it is because of a bug in the software or because not all plants are in the database yet or because it simply needs more feedback to refine its algorithms (I believe there is a way to give feedback for registered users, but I have not registered yet), or whether some humans have simply been giving incorrect or inconsistent feedback, but some matches are just clearly wrong. The purple flower it recognized not as an orchid, but as a hibiscus. Except for color, the picture was not even close.

Note: In going back to the app to double-check the names in preparation to write this review, some things had changed. The white flower was identified as a leafy skyrocket, which is about as different as it can get and still be a plant, though other possibilities were listed below, including the pricklyburr. For the purple flower, among the below-listed possibilities were two types of orchids, which were very similar, though not identical, so there is still hope.

The bottom line is that Plant Snap cannot be relied on for life-and-death decisions, but it is more accurate than my mother and easier to use than online identification guides or Google image searches. I expect to use it a lot this coming spring. The twenty-first century is getting off to an amazing start.

An anagram of a word or phrase is another word or phrase containing exactly the same letters, no more and no less. Given the enormous number of ways letters can be rearranged, it is usually possible to find an anagram appropriately descriptive of the original word. The letters in a phrase as short as “moldy shoes” can be rearranged as “Sol-shy demo,” which could be interpreted to mean a demonstration of what happens when your shoes are left in a dark place.

The Internet Anagram Server can take phrases of medium length and output thousands of possibilities within seconds, saving quite a lot of work. Then you just have to browse the list to find the ones that aren’t nonsense.

Names are especially great for plugging into the server to see what comes out. Clint Eastwood becomes Old West Action. Daniel Edward Noe becomes A Renowned Laddie. That sounds about right. Let me know what your name tells you.

Have you ever read a comic strip and been confused what was going on? Alex Norris makes comics where everything is labeled so you will never have that problem again, breaking life down into its simplest. Characters do actions with things that lead to results. It is a comic that anyone who does actions with things can relate to.

​This company will take your child’s wacky creature drawings and create large stuffed toys based on them. They can do the same for photos of your pets or people you know. It’s expensive, but a small price to pay to make your imaginary friends real and ensure your dolls and stuffed animals will be unique. This idea is too cool. I have got to do this someday.

How does money work? What causes inflation? Why are things so expensive? Do we really need a central banking system? If currency enters the economic system only by being lent at interest, and society pays all of the money back it borrowed, where does the money come from to pay off the interest? If newly printed money is not earned, what justifies it being given only to a select few? Louis Even explains things in very simple terms so that anybody can understand and offers an alternative to the debt-money systems used by most countries. It’s an interesting and thought-provoking read.