masterkitchenwizard

[masterkitchenwizard]

[masterkitchenwizard]

Fuck, and Glen Elendra Archmage of course. Forgot that one

Trying to do a tarot reading but the guy across the table is running mono blue and keeps countering my major arcana.

[masterkitchenwizard]

I'm the mono blue guy. Voidmage prodigy/Stonybrook banneret for life

Trying to do a tarot reading but the guy across the table is running mono blue and keeps countering my major arcana.

[masterkitchenwizard]

like the first rule of cooking is to have fun and be yourself and the first rule of baking is to stay calm because the dough can sense fear

[masterkitchenwizard]

This man saved both me and my son almost a century before either of us were born

Thousands of premature infants were saved from certain death by being part of a Coney Island entertainment sideshow.

At the time premature babies were considered genetically inferior, and were simply left to fend for themselves and ultimately die.

Dr Martin Couney offered desperate parents a pioneering solution that was as expensive as it was experimental - and came up with a very unusual way of covering the costs.

It was Coney Island in the early 1900’s. Beyond the Four-Legged Woman, the sword swallowers, and “Lionel the Lion-Faced Man,” was an entirely different exhibit: rows of tiny, premature human babies living in glass incubators.

The brainchild of this exhibit was Dr. Martin Couney, an enigmatic figure in the history of medicine. Couney created and ran incubator-baby exhibits on the island from 1903 to the early 1940s.

Behind the gaudy facade, premature babies were fighting for their lives, attended by a team of medical professionals.To see them, punters paid 25 cents.The public funding paid for the expensive care, which cost about $15 a day in 1903 (the equivalent of $405 today) per incubator.

Couney was in the lifesaving business, and he took it seriously. The exhibit was immaculate. When new children arrived, dropped off by panicked parents who knew Couney could help them where hospitals could not, they were immediately bathed, rubbed with alcohol and swaddled tight, then “placed in an incubator kept at 96 or so degrees, depending on the patient. Every two hours, those who could suckle were carried upstairs on a tiny elevator and fed by breast by wet nurses who lived in the building. The rest [were fed by] a funneled spoon. The smallest baby Couney handled is reported to have weighed a pound and a half.

His nurses all wore starched white uniforms and the facility was always spotlessly clean.

An early advocate of breast feeding, if he caught his wet nurses smoking or drinking they were sacked on the spot. He even employed a cook to make healthy meals for them.

The incubators themselves were a medical miracle, 40 years ahead of what was being developed in America at that time.

Each incubator was made of steel and glass and stood on legs, about 5ft tall. A water boiler on the outside supplied hot water to a pipe running underneath a bed of mesh, upon which the baby slept.

Race, economic class, and social status were never factors in his decision to treat and Couney never charged the parents for the babies care.The names were always kept anonymous, and in later years the doctor would stage reunions of his “graduates.

According to historian Jeffrey Baker, Couney’s exhibits “offered a standard of technological care not matched in any hospital of the time.”

Throughout his decades of saving babies, Couney understood there were better options. He tried to sell, or even donate, his incubators to hospitals, but they didn’t want them. He even offered all his incubators to the city of New York in 1940, but was turned down.

In a career spanning nearly half a century he claimed to have saved nearly 6,500 babies with a success rate of 85 per cent, according to the Coney Island History

In 1943, Cornell New York Hospital opened the city’s first dedicated premature infant station. As more hospitals began to adopt incubators and his techniques, Couney closed the show at Coney Island. He said his work was done.

Today, one in 10 babies born in the United States is premature, but their chance of survival is vastly improved—thanks to Couney and the carnival babies.

https://nypost.com/2018/07/23/how-fake-docs-carnival-sideshow-brought-baby-incubators-to-main-stage/

Book: The strange case of Dr. Couney

New York Post Photograph: Beth Allen

Original FB post by Liz Watkins Barton

[masterkitchenwizard]

I felt like I was reading the classics. Brought to us by historians carefully translating dead languages.

Instead you're telling me this post is the equivalent of TODAY'S NEWSPAPER?!?

this website’s easy watch. *dangles a bunch of greek gods like keys*

[masterkitchenwizard]

No offense, fellow Dutchie, but it was already used in English when you were born.

[masterkitchenwizard]

I'm so glad that in the Netherlands an employer needs to respond to a request for PTO within two weeks in writing, and if they don't it's regarded as an automatic approval.

[masterkitchenwizard]

For the sake of argument I went to download my year summary from my health insurance.

Backstory: I'm Dutch. my son was born in 2023 at a staggering 6, 5 weeks too early. He spent 4 days in NICU at a university hospital because he needed to be on respiratory support and another few weeks at our regional hospital once he was stable. My wife had an emergency c-section and also stayed in the hospital for about two weeks.

You know what the hospital billed my health insurance for both of them? 20k for my wife, 50k for my son.

You know what I had to pay my insurance? 385 euros which is my wife's "own risk" in a year. Children under 18 don't even pay own risk, his care was completely covered.

If I had lived anywhere in the States I expect I'd have had to declare bankruptcy because thos costs would've been inflated to outrageous proportions.

Blogging this tweet because this explains SO MUCH about the mindset of pretty much all the folks I’ve known who’re against single-payer, it’s not even funny…

[masterkitchenwizard]

For all of you doubting the veracity of this or think this is an isolated occurrence.

NO!!!

Having worked at a major international airport as an in-house goldsmith for multiple years the amount of times this has happened to me when people wanted to have their rings cleaned is staggering.

Sometimes the gunk coming out of their hollow rings would smell faintly of the unholy mixture of all the different perfumes and hand lotions they had used over the last decade, as if the buildup of dead skin cells and sweat wasn't enough on top of the spit they usually employed to get that piece of metal off of their finger.

I haven't done this job for years now but reading this brings back some visceral flashbacks.

In general there wasn’t a lot of funny story material when I worked selling jewelry. People were much more formal and serious about dropping thousands of dollars.

But there was one weird thing that absolutely rocked my whole world when I worked there.

So picture this, me, a freshly minted sales associate ready to greet my first customer. In walks the most fashionable old woman you’ve ever seen. Fur jacket, designer clothes, dripping with jewelry.

I chirp a greeting and she tells me she’s in to get her jewelry cleaned. No problem, it’s a free service we offered and I was happy to do it. But she doesn’t reach for the ring, which in case you were wondering houses a diamond worth more than my annual income. She begins to raise her hand.

At first I watched with puzzlement but it soon grew into mounting horror as she inserted her beautifully manicured arthritic finger into her mouth and began sucking. She worked saliva between the fine jewelry and her knuckle and then triumphantly pulled her finger from her mouth, sans ring.

She then spat her glistening ring into her palm and offered it to me with the confidence of someone who knows she won’t be questioned on her manners by a peon like me.

Shivering with unvoiced disgust I held my hand out and tried not to flinch as she dropped it into my palm.

When I’d finished I ran into the diamond room where we all congregated and frantically conveyed the absolutely horrific thing that just happened to me. I was met with the hardened stares of people who dealt with this on the regular.

“All the old ladies do it,” I was informed

I got quicker on the draw to grab a jewelry show pad for them to put their slimy mouth rings into so I didn’t have to touch them, but it was a biweekly occurrence.

[masterkitchenwizard]

A word (or several) about the Haka that was performed in Parliament.

I hemm'd and haww'd about whether to say anything about this. But just a few weeks ago I stood up at the CTU gathering and gave a speech about how important it is to push back against the government's proposed changes to Te Tiriti O Waitangi, and about how they are betting that people from my background, who look like me and sound like me, won't care. And the truth is I do care. Very much.

For the Brits who are waking up, there's going to be a slew of headlines about how the New Zealand Parliament was today 'disrupted' and 'suspended' because a young female Māori MP performed a Haka, backed by other members of her political party (Te Pāti Māori) in response to a bill being read. This Bill proposes to change the Principals of Te Tiriti O Wantangi, the closest thing New Zealand has to a founding document. It has been proposed by ACT, a small and very right wing party who are a coalition parter to our National Party (NZ Tories). The closest political analogy the UK has to ACT is probably The Reform Party.

Our NZ Parliamentary system is based on the English one (And yes, I said English. I meant what I said). It's very recognisable to me, as a Crown structure and system, as I grew up watching coverage of the House of Commons on UK TV.

New Zealand, in accordance with Te Tiriti O Waitangi, is supposed to be a bicultural society. And Bicultural means Māori and Non Māori, not Māori and 'White' or 'British' - so there is supposed to be room for everyone in this agreement. But Māori are supposed to be centralised in this agreement.

I do not see, in the Parliamentary system, room being made for Māori cultural practices or traditions. The types you would see on a Marae, between Māori people. There is not sufficient room for Haka, for Waiata, for Korero in Te Reo Māori. How do I know this? Because if there was, half of the space of these proceedings would be made available for this. So my feeling about Parliament has been, since arriving here, that it is not truly bicultural. It is not a fusion of systems. It is an imposition by The Crown. Our way or the high way.

So today, when Hana-Rawhiti Maipi-Clarke, of Te Pāti Māori, lead that stirring rendition of the Ka Mate Haka in Parliament (and yes, she led it, she did not perform it alone) - I didn't see disrespect. I didn't see disruption. I certainly didn't see hate. Though I wouldn't blame her for feeling that way towards the people who have drafted and proposed this bill.

I saw anger. I saw frustration. I saw defiance to the existence of this bill. I saw people fighting, bitterly, to have their say, in their way, in a system which doesn't acknowledge them, doesn't make room for them, and doesn't respect them. Or rather, only accepts them when they use the strictures and structures imposed by The Crown.

Te Tiriti o Waitangi was supposed to enshrine Māori interests and traditions, and the promise of that has never been truly fulfilled.

If Te Tiriti had ensured true bicultural equality, haka performances in Parliament might not be seen right now through a colonial lense and viewed as an inconvenience by so many people. The fact that this haka was performed as this parliament were voting on a proposed piece of legislation which further strips away their rights and recognition...? It was absolutely appropriate. And I back them all the way.

The Parliamentarians had a colonialised view of how today was 'supposed' to go. This wonderful, young, passionate Māori wahine didn't subscribe to that. She did things her way, backed by people who knew why this was important. If Te Tiriti had ever been enacted properly, this wouldn't have been shocking. It would have been expected. It would have been valued. And this ... toilet-paper-in-waiting disgrace of a bill would never have made it on to the floor.

We're all so proud of the All Blacks doing the Haka at the rugby, aren't we! Great tradition for the rest of the world to share, two minutes at the start of the game, great way to amp up the players and crowd. But reducing Haka, in purpose and tradition, to that sole example? That's a disservice. Ka Mate was the first Haka I was ever exposed to, and yes, it was watching the All Blacks perform it at the Rugby World Cup. It is powerful, and not enough people know the meaning of it. It's more than an entertaining two minutes before the game kicks off. It packs a punch, politically. Go take a look. It was the perfect sentiment for this moment.

Kei runga koe, Hana-Rawhiti Maipi-Clarke. Karawhiua!

https://www.toarangatira.iwi.nz/kamate

[masterkitchenwizard]

I'm a native Dutch speaker and let me tell you I'd be horrified to find out Dutch was the language of paradise.

Johannes Goropius Becanus, Opera Ioan, 1580

[masterkitchenwizard]

Not if you want to piss off the other 10 provinces that are not North and South Holland

nodding furiously at every second of this video

[masterkitchenwizard]

I'm particularly fond of the saying: "Every attempt to make a system foolproof just challenges God to make a better idiot"

The thing about tumblr is that you could make an entirely reasonable post like "hey in a pinch you can use potato starch as dry shampoo, just sprinkle it on top and comb it in, you can wash it off later and it'll be completely fine", and there's going to be someone reblogging this like

"sure this is safe and ok IN SOME CASES but ONLY if you're 100% sure that the thing you're using is potato starch and not something else, like laundry detergent! DO NOT EVER just sprinkle random powders into your hair before you're sure you've identified it correctly! You could burn your scalp off by following OP's advice without question!"

...Like are you sure that this is a real problem that people might actually have, or did you just feel like it should now be your turn to be talking?

[masterkitchenwizard]

Imagine a Greek Chorus, but played by Pitbull and Ke$ha

"we're going down, I'm yelling HADES!!!"

In her hole in a manner similar to this btw:

[masterkitchenwizard]

As a kitchen wizard I'm tempted to hide spells underneath twenty layers of recipe nostalgia now

Ive seen people be like in modern fantasy like "oh the pritagonists can just look up spells on their phone how do you solve that"

Imma be honest most people who go on recipe websites and book every recipe they see don't even use them lmao why would with be different

[masterkitchenwizard]

Same

I am looking neither respectfully nor disrespectfully. I gaze without recognition of your form, and without understanding.