The Official Good Ideas Thread™
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Why not get/invent some spray-on butter?
It just needs something to keep it liquid under pressure so that the cooling due to expelling the butter from the can solidifies it.
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Why not get/invent some spray-on butter?
It just needs something to keep it liquid under pressure so that the cooling due to expelling the butter from the can solidifies it.
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Sounds more expensive than buying bricks of butter like I do now.
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Yay, Markdown bolding fail...I even used the "bold" button and didn't manually edit it.
Posts since last Markdown bug: 0
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Plus, liquid butter separates, so you'd have to shake it.
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Sounds more expensive than buying bricks of butter like I do now.
Oh, you want to bring cost into it too?
@boomzilla said:Plus, liquid butter separates, so you'd have to shake it.
It might be easier to keep the components separated inside and mix them in the dispensing process.
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It might be easier to keep the components separated inside and mix them in the dispensing process.
+1. This is a situation that has been solved by oxyacetylene torches for what, a century or so?
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Oh, you want to bring cost into it too?
Hey, I wasn't the one who asked "Why not?"
It might be easier to keep the components separated inside and mix them in the dispensing process.
I'm thinking it wouldn't. Get back to me when you figure it out.
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Get back to me when you figure it out.
OK, so we pump it full of an emulsifier instead having first pre-treated the butter so as to make the minor separable component into much smaller droplets. That should keep things from separating out, and the process is well understood from the paint manufacturing industry.
Practicality can go in the Bad Ideas thread.
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Maybe you need something like a hot glue gun, but for butter. Melts it, or at least makes it spreadable, upon trigger pull.
Then put the gun, with butter still loaded, back in the refrigerator.
http://www.howardelectronics.com/steinel/images/WGF-3002L.jpg
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That might work without modifications! (well other than cutting down a stick of butter to the proper size)
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(well other than cutting down a stick of butter to the proper size)
BAH! As with so many things, the right solution is bigger guns.
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Good idea: Having a large bag of Milky Way candy bars in my cubicle.
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The trouble with that is it's not butter. It's probably not even margarine. They have an olive-oil version, so I'm guessing this is just butter-flavored vegetable oil. (The web site lists "Nutrition Facts" (rounded down to 0*), but not ingredients.)
* Nutrition Fact rounding beats even DiscoRounding; e.g., 0mg * 5 = 15mg.
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bricks of butter
I think they would make a rather unreliable construction material in warm climates.
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Interleave them with bricks of Pykrete, and refrigerate the whole building..
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Nutrition Fact rounding beats even DiscoRounding; e.g., 0mg * 5 = 15mg.
Not really. Nutrition facts are rounded to the nearest X units. Take, for example, calories. In the US, Calories are rounded to the nearest 10, and Calories from Fat are rounded to the nearest 5. These rounding rules are mandated by regulation. This kind of thing easily explains Nutritional facts rounding, which is true rounding. Discorounding is just FUBARed.
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These rounding rules are mandated by regulation.
I realize that, but I would argue that the regulations themselves are FUBAR (which, of course, is SNAFU), because they lead to WTFs like 0mg * 5 = 15mg.
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TRWTF with regard to nutrition facts is that the food producer gets to set their own serving size. That is how we get "fat-free" cooking sprays. They set the serving size to a 1-second spray, which gives a ~2gram serving of 100% fat, but they get to round down to 0g. When I use cooking spray, it is probably more like a 5-10 second spray.
Or how cereal only has 120 calories...if you eat 2/3 cup with no milk. 2/3 cup is basically a coffee cup. No one eats that little cereal and they always add milk. You could go on nearly forever with such examples.
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@Intercourse said:
food producer gets to set their own serving size.
In the US, serving sizes are actually mandated as well. The one exception is when products are packaged in a way that clearly indicates they are meant to be consumed as a single serving.
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@Intercourse said:
Or how cereal only has 120 calories...if you eat 2/3 cup with no milk. 2/3 cup is basically a coffee cup. No one eats that little cereal and they always add milk. You could go on nearly forever with such examples.
Serving sizes in the US are determined using the Reference Amounts Customarily Consumed. This table was developed in the mid-20th century, and has remained largely unchanged since then.
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In the US, serving sizes are actually mandated as well.
OK, let me correct myself for the pedantic. The food producers themselves are the ones who originally had a large part in setting serving sizes back in the 70's and they have not changed since then. There are standard serving sizes, but they were set unrealistically low. As in the standard serving size for ice cream is 1/2 cup. That is like 2-3 spoonfuls.
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I realize that, but I would argue that the regulations themselves are FUBAR (which, of course, is SNAFU), because they lead to WTFs like 0mg * 5 = 15mg.
This isn't a rounding error though. It's a perceived mathematical error. If you consider that the 0mg is being un-rounded, multiplied by 5, and then rounded again, the apparent WTF disappears.
Discorounding is a WTF because it isn't real rounding and it is isn't consistent. Rounding on nutrition facts is real rounding, and is consistent, so there's no comparison.
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@Intercourse said:
The food producers themselves are the ones who originally had a large part in setting serving sizes back in the 70's and they have not changed since then.
Wrong. Two surveys were performed in '78 and '88 (the Nationwide Health and Nutrition Examination Surveys). The results of these surveys were later averaged and used by the task force from the USDA that determined the initial set of serving sizes for regulatory purposes. One of the major problems with this method was that the surveys included children as young as 4. Now I don't know about you, but I certainly eat a lot more than my 5 year old.
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One of the major problems with this method was that the surveys included children as young as 4. Now I don't know about you, but I certainly eat a lot more than my 5 year old.
Especially if it involves certain vegetables. :)
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Good idea: Having a large bag of Milky Way candy bars in my cubicle.
@mott555 said:Bad idea: Having a large bag of Milky Way candy bars in my cubicle.
Just want to acknowledge that I see what you did there.
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@Intercourse said:
There are standard serving sizes, but they were set unrealistically low. As in the standard serving size for ice cream is 1/2 cup. That is like 2-3 spoonfuls.
That's unrealistic?
Though I suppose if you don't actually specify whether it's mustard, tea, table (UK not US), runcible or M1926 spoons, points could be made either way
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Interleave them with bricks of Pykrete, and refrigerate the whole building..
Why not add some frozen milk bricks too?
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Given that ice cream is a dessert by any reasonable definition, I would expect the spoon of choice to be a dessert spoon (which approximately 2 teaspoons or ⅔ of a tablespoon).
a.k.a. A miserably small amount of ice cream.
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⅔ of a tablespoon
I refer you back to the post you replied to - is that a metric or imperial tablespoon? ;D
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I refer you back to the post you replied to - is that a metric or imperial tablespoon]? ;D
It's immaterial: the key definition is “not enough ice cream” and that holds true in both cases.If you really want to be serious about it, measure in m3 with specified temperature and pressure and worry about the conversion factors later. For ice cream, 270K might be a reasonable temperature, and standard sea-level pressure will do for most people — Denverites excluded — on the grounds that having ice cream at the beach is a well-observed tradition.
Is it rocky road flavour ice cream?
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It's immaterial: the key definition is “not enough ice cream” and that holds true in both cases.
Unless you're pigging out, 3 (full) spoons of any reasonable size is 'enough'.
I'm thinking of dessert as part of an X-course meal here, not as the primary way of satiating your hunger while sat in front of the TV - say around 300 calories of 'full-fat' ice cream.
Bear in mind the 'average' (yes, yes, I know) calorie intake for people "should be" around 2,000-3,000, that's 10%-15% of your intake on ice cream alone.
Is that 'enough'?
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say around 300 calories of 'full-fat' ice cream.
Doing It Wrong.
When I eat ice cream I get a bowl of at least 600 calories, unless it's a large milkshake from the local Dairy Chef (DQ knock-off but quite good and right next to the office) and then it's at least 1000.
I'm a fat kid at heart.
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Screw @PaulaBean, this is now the Paula Dean thread.
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I sometimes have cereal with yoghurt.
You misyoghurtistic milkitarian!
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GoodBest idea: muting the Meta category.
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I wonder if she could have kept her cool if it was a wasp?
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Only one way to find out...
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Onwards, to the evil ideas thread!
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These guys weren't kidding around about their renewable / sustainable chemistry lab:
The University of Nottingham has vowed to rebuild after the £20 million GlaxoSmithKline Carbon Neutral Laboratory for Sustainable Chemistry at Jubilee Park was ripped apart by fire.
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The building was made with carbon-neutral principles including a timber frame.
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20 million dollars for some wood?
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You try to work out how to do it for less without undervaluing anyone's time and effort…
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20 million dollars for some wood?
Nope, 20 million pounds. That's roughly $32 million dollars.
Maybe they bought Atwood...
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A self service beer pump
Cheers guys! :-D
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Using a bottle instead of the shitty small plastic cups that they give you ;-)
Filed under: I just need a catheter now and I won't have to get up for the rest of the day