#yes name brand food and generic food is made in many of the same factories

[ausefulblogforputtingthingsin]

Communist food supplies, of course, have so much more varied supply lines and neeeeeever any contamination.

But yes, check your apple juice just in case

Every time there's a food recall that spreads from one company to the next, even from generic brands that are unique to the store selling them, it makes me realize the illusion of choice under capitalism hyped up by conservatives is a bunch of bullshit.

Oh and uh, don't drink apple juice for a while. Arsenic. And it's more than just Aldi and Walmart

[chloeunitfive]

Is Vegan Fashion Really Better For The Planet? 

We've all heard that eating a vegan diet is healthier for the environment, but what about fashion? Animal-derived materials such as leather, wool, and silk have long been staples of the luxury fashion business, but rising environmental and ethical concerns have led to a surge in vegan fashion appeal in recent years. So, is vegan fashion truly healthier for the environment? When comparing the greenhouse gas emissions of animal-based products versus vegan alternatives, the answer is often yes. "The available lifecycle assessments (LCAs) do show that leather from cattle has higher GHG emissions than, say, polyester or cotton production," says Ashley Gill, senior director of standards and stakeholder engagement at materials non-profit Textile Exchange. "Some of those emissions come from the methane from cows' digestion, emissions from food production, and deforestation happening in the leather supply chain." According to the Higg Materials Sustainability Index, a tool that uses LCAs to measure the impacts of different materials, wool and silk (the latter of which requires a large amount of energy to produce) have a greater impact on global warming than synthetic alternatives such as polyester and acetate (often used as a replacement for silk).

These effect estimates, however, may not always reveal the entire story. "The LCAs don't tend to capture that sometimes a leather good [for example] may, in most instances, last longer than something made from synthetic material," she says. Indeed, a 2018 study analysing the impact of four sweaters - composed of wool, cotton, polycotton, and acrylic - discovered that the wool sweater had the least impact when the usage phase was considered. It's also worth noting that many vegan substitutes contain at least some synthetics, with some so-called vegan leathers being entirely plastic (thus the name pleather, which was often used to refer to "fake leather"). When it comes to fabrics like polyester, acrylic, and acetate, which are frequently used as wool and silk substitutes, there's also the issue of microplastics being discharged into our rivers when washed, not to mention the fact that they're generated from fossil fuels. "Being vegan has no direct impact on sustainability." Of sure, it can have environmental advantages in some cases, but that is not the goal of the vegan definition," Gill says. "Something that is called vegan could be made from virgin plastic using highly toxic chemicals - that's a really important thing to understand."

Sébastien Kopp, co-founder of Veja, an eco-conscious trainer brand that sells both vegan and non-vegan items, agrees. "Can you claim to be more environmentally conscious if you replace leather with plastic fabrics derived from petroleum?" "You end up drilling petroleum if you follow the path of plastic," he argues. Even plant-based alternatives, such as Piatex, which is manufactured from pineapple waste, and Mylo, which is formed from mushroom roots, contain some synthetics, raising concerns about what happens to these materials when they are no longer useful, given that they are not biodegradable. The coated cotton fabric used by Veja for their vegan footwear is the same. "We created an alternative to leather based on our Fairtrade and organic cotton," Kopp goes on to say. "CWL is 60 percent organic cotton and 2 percent maize." The rest is still plastic, but it's a huge step ahead." Of course, these materials are still in their infancy and will definitely improve (100% plastic-free alternatives, such as Slow Factory's Slowhide, are currently under development). It's also worth mentioning that, depending on the tanning procedure used to prepare the hide, not all animal leather is biodegradable. On the other side, there are increasing initiatives to make animal-based products more sustainable, whether by recycling fibres or sourcing fibres generated through regenerative farming practises like natural grazing. Creating a more transparent supply chain will be critical, as evidenced by a recent investigation tying leather to Amazon deforestation. "I believe that in the next few years, you will have a proper leather supply chain that ticks all the boxes, from processing to traceability to high animal welfare," says Nina Marenzi, founder of the non-profit The Sustainable Angle, which is driving the Future Fabrics Expo. "We're starting to consider how materials can have a positive impact." Shouldn't we have soil-nourishing ingredients that aid to boost topsoil biodiversity? When you consider that, you're taking a different approach to these materials - [items like] leather certainly have a job to play." Of course, there are ethical reasons why people choose vegan fashion, but the answer isn't yet black and white when it comes to whether it's truly better for the earth. As a result, the current emphasis is on making both vegan and non-vegan materials as sustainable as feasible. "If you have best practise on both sides, ultimately, it really is a personal decision whether you want to use something that has been made from animal [products] or not," Marenzi said.

Referencing:

Emily Chan. (2022). Is Vegan Fashion Really Better For The Planet?. [Online]. British Vogue. Last Updated: 9 February 2022. Available at: https://www.vogue.co.uk/fashion/article/is-vegan-fashion-sustainable [Accessed 7 November 2023].

[sabreean]

One word for you...

Where I have not gone plastic-free:

Bread box: There are no plastic-free, airtight bread boxes that I’ve been able to find and I *must have* airtight. I make my own bread in a bread machine just because I like to, and the first few loaves I made here on the humid island grew mold within three days because my old bread box was not airtight. Bread bags are more eco-friendly but aren’t airtight, and will hold the humidity. I could find no silicon boxes and also could not find silicone containers/bags that I could be sure would be big enough to hold a loaf of bread and still close completely. I’m considering a giant silicone bag I found online, for marinating meat, so if I get that I can see if a loaf will fit inside. But I haven’t pulled the trigger on that yet, buying something just to marinate meat doesn’t fall neatly into the “I really need it now” category. So I purchased a BPA-free plastic, airtight box and it seems to be working very well. It’s so airtight that I was able to store bananas in it as well and there has been no sign of fruit flies.

Suncare: I spent two days working on the porch. I was under a roof in shade the entire time but I sunburn if I stand next to a toaster, so at the end of the second day I looked like Roy Neary in “Close Encounters of the Third Kind”. As in the right half of my face was bright red. I wasn’t wearing sunscreen because it breaks me out. All of it. Every single sunscreen ever. They all break out my face, neck and chest within 20 minutes of application. So I did some research and learned about mineral sunscreens versus chemical sunscreens and after reading a lot of recommendations and reviews, I ordered Alba Botanica Sensitive Mineral Sunscreen. Yes the tube is plastic, but there’s probably no avoiding that. The sport cream is 45 SPF, waterproof for up to 80 minutes, vegan, free of all the chemicals that turn my face into a Marscape, biodegradable and - get this - reef safe. That’s a “gee how nice” for most people but now that I’m swimming around coral reefs, shit got real. They also make a spray-on but it’s not legal to ship aerosol cans to Hawaii, something about them exploding under pressure blah-bibby-blah. Pretty bummed about that. For those wondering, until now I’ve worn a sun visor whenever I’m outdoors but it didn’t occur to me to wear it on a covered porch. I’m sure it didn’t occur to Roy on a dark deserted highway in the middle of an Indiana night, either. LATER UPDATE: Native makes a mineral sunscreen and I thought it wasn't water resistant, but it turns out that it is, although I should not have had to dig so deep into their website to find this out. Better than getting anal probed, all things considered. The Alba sunscreen is very thick and hard to squeeze out of the tube, and you can feel it on your skin at first but you forget pretty quickly. It is completely unscented. You have to make sure to rub it in well if you don’t want to look a little weird. It showers off clean and easy and after a few days with it, not a single blemish! Our pharmacy sells some water resistant mineral sunscreens. I didn’t price them the last time I was there to compare with online ordering and they are probably reef-safe because as of January 1 of this year, suncreeens containing oxybenzone and octinoxate are banned in Hawaii to protect the reefs. But my next purchase will be Little Hands because it is made right here in Hawaii. I have been a big believer in ‘buy local’ for many years and they are plastic-free.

Groceries: Groceries haven’t changed. I’ve been using cloth shopping and produce bags for many years, they just bloody well work better. I do buy some foods in plastic, often there just isn’t any alternative. This was true even on the mainland. The main change is that now I walk to the store more often than not. I was able to walk to almost everything I needed when I lived in Austin’s SoCo in the early aughts and I loved it, I am so so happy to be able to do that again. Knowing I’m just a pleasant stroll away also means that I only buy what I need in the immediate future. There are a few exceptions for items that sell out very soon after the weekly supply barge comes, and don’t always get restocked even then. I drive when I have to buy heavy or awkward to carry things, like a case of soda. I’ve found conflicts with grocery choices because of a weird contradiction: non-hippie products in cardboard/paper packaging versus hippie products in plastic. I first noticed this when I went to buy sugar the other day - do I get the organic non bleached sugar in the plastic bag, or the nonorganic bleached sugar in the plastic bag? It wasn’t much of a conflict in any real world sense, just something that grabbed my attention. (I went with the plastic by the way, for the organic foodstuff that was going to go into my body).

Probably the clothesline, I have no idea what the hell that thing is made of, most likely nylon. We don’t use it for everything because it’s too humid here to dry everything in a reasonable amount of time. But we use it for some things - especially towels and swim wear - and I’m glad that we have it and it saves money on electricity. Our electricity generation here on the island is likely solar but still, no need to be greedy about it. Lots of people here have clotheslines, they are a common sight I am glad to see.

Bandages: I use Wellys. Patch bamboo bandages sound great, but I am clumsy AF and so I need bandages that are going to stay on through wet and dry and everything else. Wellys are flexible fabric, latex-free bandages made in the USA, in reusable tins that you can buy refills for if you don’t want a new tin, and that create a seal around all four edges. They are a certified B Corp so even with a bit of plastic, the company is still in line with my ethics.

Makeup: I use mostly mineral makeup, because it lasts longer (no organic ingredients to breed bacteria) and many mineral brands offer smaller quantities that are more sensible for people who don’t wear it everyday, or at least don’t wear the same colors every day. On the mainland I went weeks without wearing makeup and here I’ll probably go for months, it’s just such a casual place. I might wear some when we go across to Maui for a long weekend. But there are a lot of all natural and plastic-free makeup options out there these days, I am glad to see. If I need to replace anything I will shop with them but it’s just stupid and wasteful to toss everything out and buy new. One thing I won’t compromise on is mascara, I use Thrive because it really does what it claims, and it is still a company that aligns with my ethics. Many zero-waste brands sell cake mascara and that’s a complete nope for me. I tried cake mascara in high school, when I was going through my Audrey Hepburn/Sophia Loren makeup phase and I really didn’t like it. I also tried cake eyeliner and must confess that this elder goth never ever got the hang of liquid eyeliner, Icarus winged better than I can. I gave up a long time ago, pencil me in baby. Also, I wear lipstick, the paint-on stuff that stays on through food, drink, sex and a nuclear blast. IMO, lip balms are a waste of money and do not count as ‘makeup’, unless you’re only intention is to prevent chapped lips and with a small amount of color that lasts few minutes at a time.

Hair brush: I need a new hair brush that is designed for my long fine mane because my hair is getting a lot of punishment here, between wind and swimming and so more frequent washing and lots of pulling and tugging into braids. I bounced back and forth between Ibiza (boar bristles, wood handle) and Mason Pearson (boar bristles, plastic handle), for about half an hour. I finally decided to bite the big one and invest in the Mason Pearson. It is universally reputed as the best hair brush to be had on planet Earth. The was company founded in London by a Yorkshireman named Mason Pearson (bet you didn’t see that coming) in 1885. The boar bristles are either shed bristles collected from the wild in India and China or sourced from the meat industry as they are a by-product of processing farmed boar; you may ask so I will answer and yes, I do eat boar. Mason Pearson is still owned and run by the Pearson family and the Pearson women have always played integral roles in the company. Indeed Mary Pearson was the CEO for the 20 years following the death of her husband, founder Mason, and one of their daughters ran the top floor of the factory on Old Ford Road in London for 50 years. You can purchase a brush with a handcrafted made-to-order wood handle but while I am willing to make the investment in a Mason Pearson brush, I just can’t bring myself to be so self-indulgent as to even send a price inquiry for the wood model. This is where my best friend reminds me of the lengths I went to and the price I paid to obtain a bottle of the finest Irish whiskey in the world to demonstrate that yes, I can be that self-indulgent without much convincing. I just can’t bring myself to do it with a hair brush. I purchased from Pasteur Pharmacy in NYC because they made their bones, if you will, in their early years in the 60s by catering to humans with dogs.

Bed blanket: I just couldn’t bring myself to buy a bamboo blanket/bedspread that costs in the $275 neighborhood when the dogs will be spending at least as much time on it as we will spend under it. So we went with half cotton/half bamboo for a much more reasonable price. The temps here are warm by the thermometer but the air is heavy with humidity (100% yesterday and that doesn’t necessarily mean rain), so when the fans blow it around it can be pretty damn chilly. And the dogs steal the covers.

Clothing: if I need new clothing I will consider bamboo but it’s damned expensive. I was shopping for a second bathing suit recently because I’m at the beach often enough that I need a suit to wear while the other one is drying or waiting to be laundered free of all the salt and sand that didn’t wind up in my ass or under my tits. I always thought that sand-in-uncomfortable-places was a joke, I was very wrong. I spent two hours searching for bamboo or other plant-based sustainable fabric or recycled fabric and found nothing under a hundred bucks. Nothing. Not even a thong bikini (I already have sand up my ass, I don’t need material there as well). I’m not lounging instagrammatically on Waikiki, I’m swimming in 5+ foot surf every weekend at least, so I am not willing to pay that much for a suit intended for plenty of use and punishment. I got a bikini because it will be easier to discreetly rinse most of the sand away before going back up the beach, if you know what I mean and I think you do.

[surveys-at-your-service]

Survey #283

“if teardrops could be bottled, there’d be swimming pools filled by models”

How much would you tip a waiter or waitress for good service? I honestly don’t even know the proper etiquette of tipping because I almost never ever have been in a sit-down restaurant where I’ve paid because of the whole “I don’t have an income” thing. If for whatever reason I did, I would have asked the person with me how. I do (maybe…) believe however that there should be a baseline for how much you tip, even if your experience is somewhat unpleasant. You don’t know what that person is going through that day. If it’s just pure awful, then I might not tip at all, but I think I’d honestly feel way too guilty. Who is your favorite character from the television sitcom Friends? I don’t watch it. Whose name might you have tattooed on your body? None. Well, I guess if I had hypothetical kids, I might, especially as a tribute if they died. What is something that you always need to leave plugged in? I always at least have my laptop charger plugged into the wall, but not always into my computer as to not totally kill the battery. I just need it a lot because I’m only always on it. Who might you send a selfie to? I don’t send them to anyone, really, save for specific occasions. I just take selfies once in a blue moon to change my Facebook picture, honestly. I feel weird just sending people pictures of me because I feel like I’m screaming, “HEY LOOK AND COMPLIMENT ME!!!!!!!!!”, so it makes me uncomfortable. I only did semi-recently because my friend did my makeup for a Halloween shoot and for once in my goddamn life I felt really pretty so sent it to Sara. Name an item in or on your bed every night. My phone is on the right upper corner of my bed so I can check it when I wake up; I always wake up throughout the night and wanna know what time it is. Out of your work shift, how much time do you spend doing “actual work”? Well one, define “actual work,” but odds are almost zero because I don’t have shit to do. How long do your New Years resolutions typically last? I don’t make ‘em. Who would you call first after getting engaged to tell them the news? Most likely Mom. What’s the song that reminds you of the person you like?Okay so deadass I listened to NSP’s “Wish You Were Here” cover recently and kinda cried lol. Are you good at holding back your tears? NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO. Have you ever sacrificed something important to you for someone you love? My goddamn sanity. How many jobs do you have? None. Do you have any memories you want to erase? There’s one occasion with Jason I wish I could forget so, so badly. Do you believe in the phrase “If it’s meant to be, it will be”? No. I don’t believe in pre-determined destinies and such, and thus I don’t see anything as “meant” and “not meant” to be. Do you believe in destiny? Wow, good timing lmao. Do you believe that things will get better? I like to think so. Have you ever drunk dialed someone? No. Have you ever worn a tiara? Haha, I think on my 18th birthday maybe, my friend Summer came with us to dinner and brought me a birthday tiara. If someone offered to take you out for your birthday, where would you decide to go? I almost always go to Olive Garden for dinner. But, after trying the Cheesecake Factory for the first time… *eyes emoji* If you plan to have kids, what will you tell them about Santa Clause? I’m not having kids, but hypothetically, I’d let them believe it. It’s so magical as a kid and brings so much excitement. I’d tell them the truth when it feels appropriate, and if I know they’re not the type to go telling other kids for no reason “HEY MY MOM SAID SANTA’S NOT REAL SO UR DUMB.” I’d be damned if they ruined it for other children. If you have ever been employed, have you ever been attracted to your boss? What about a co-worker? Not that I remember. Do [would] you avoid kissing your [possibly hypothetical] significant other when you or they are ill? Look man I made out with my ex while he was recovering from bronchitis before we knew it wasn’t contagious so OOPS yeah because I am 110% the “if you’re sick, I’m sick” dumbass all the while going FULL Mom Mode taking care of the person. What was the last thing you bought, other than food? With my own money, that is a daaaamn good question. I only really use it/am given it for food. Have you ever had a crush on a teacher? No. Who was the last person you Facebook messaged? Do you know what that person is doing at this moment? My mom. She’s in the living room watching TV, probably. Think back to the last time you cried, or felt like crying. Who or what helped you to feel better? My mom. Do you own any accessories with your name or initial on them? No, they don’t appeal to me. Is there someone of the opposite sex that knows everything, or almost everything, about you? I would say Jason, but we haven’t seen or spoken to each other for almost four years, and I’m a much different person by now, and I’m sure he is, too. Do you remember the last time you cried because you missed someone? A few weeks back I had a breakdown over Jason again. My PTSD was and still is being pretty rough lately. Are your eyes the same color as your sibling(s)? Just my brother. Anything in your room that you’re hiding from your parents, or someone else? No. What’s your most noticeable flaw? Thinking about it, probably my extreme aversion to conflict. I will BOLT from confrontation. And what’s your best feature? I’m extremely empathetic. Have you ever hallucinated? Yeah; I would see shadows move when I was coming off a certain med. Do you have fangirl-ish tendencies? ………………. Have you ever replied “OK” when someone confessed they liked you? Wow, no. Either admit reciprocated feelings or gently turn them down. The Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin, or The Beatles? OHHHHHHHH BUDDY. Led Zeppelin, I think… but maybe the Stones. Idk. What would you do for immortality and infinite youth? Nothing. Would you rather have a pool or a hot tub? A pool. Is your handwriting legible? Yes. Well, some people find it slightly difficult because it’s kinda fancy. Have you ever held a baby chick? Yes! Do you think ‘everything bagels’ are disgusting? I’m not a fan. Do you live with anyone that you try to avoid at all costs? No. What did you last get upset about? How incredibly fuckin weak my body is. When is the last time you personally made someone else cry? I don’t know. How many more people do you think you’ll kiss before you die? Hopefully only one. I do NOT want to deal with anymore heartbreak, nor do I want to waste anymore time with someone I’m not going to spend the rest of my life with. Are you more spiritual or religious? Spiritual. Ever been to a rave? Nooooo, most definitely not my scene. Are you afraid to name the person you talk the most shit about? No. Song playing right now? I’m listening to “PRESIDENT X” by 3TEETH rn. Have you ever laughed at someone because they had a funny name? No, that’s incredibly rude. Speaking of names, why do celebrities always call their kids stupid ones? They’re not all “stupid”…? There are some beautiful names I’ve heard. It’s none of my business why others’ children are named what they are. Do you get car sick easily? I don’t. Do you think you’re a good conversationalist? Why is that? NO. I’m just awkward and don’t know what to talk about or what to say back to people a lot. Awhile back though my friend Ian told me I was actually a really nice one and it meant a LOT to me. Hearing someone say that reassured me a little bit. Have you ever been on a float in a parade? What were you doing on it? No. Have you ever been in a helicopter? No. Have you ever had chicken pox? No. Who is your favorite animated character? Oh boy that’s hard man, idk. Maybe Ninetales, at least aesthetically. Idk about as characters themselves. Is it easy to make you gag? Yeah. Who’s your favorite Disney character? Probably Scar. Would you rather have a pet crocodile or a pet octopus? I deadass kinda want a caiman lol. It’s something I doubt I’ll actually do, though. Do you like Ritz crackers? Yeah. Do you have any designer clothing? If so what brand? No. Were you afraid of the dark when you were little? Not very, no. What are your opinions on war in general? It’s fucking awful and could be avoided if people weren’t so goddamn hasty, selfish, and uncompromising, among many other adjectives. Do you like pretzels? Yessss, especially soft ones. Have you ever wanted to be a writer? Yeah, tons of times in my life on-and-off. Did you even vote? This is the very first year I actually did. I felt really bad for not acting, only complaining about my government, and “silence speaks” was heavy on my head. Did some research to educate myself, and I felt amazing afterwards. What is your favorite flavor of gum? Usually watermelon. Are you wearing any bandaids? If so, where and why? No. Do you currently have any bruises on you? No. Do you/did you like or dislike school? I always hated it. Are you currently wearing any lotion? No. Do you ever make recipes found online? What was the last one? I don’t cook, so… but there sure are some that look good. If you smoke weed, what do you usually do after you get high? If you don’t, what would you do if everyone around you were smoking? I never have, so I wouldn’t know. Haha, for the second half, sit there awkwardly… been there once. What’s the last thing you ordered online? The next Wings of Fire book. Starting Sunny’s story now. Tell me about your favorite dress. I had this spring dress in high school that was white with purple skulls on it in a floral design… It was really cute and just has a special memory tied to it. Have you ever slept in a waterbed? If so, what was it like? Yeah, that used to be considered “fun” as a kid. They’re not awful, but not that comfortable either, and if I remember well, it’s easy to get sweaty because of the material. How many floors does your house have? Just one. Have you ever had anything removed from your body? Yes. Do you enjoy sappy love songs? Hell yeah I do. Do you ever buy the same shirt in different colors? Simple tank tops, yeah. Ever made out on a rooftop? Damn dude no I’d be paranoid of falling off lmao. One place you will never eat at? Arby’s. If someone went through your pictures, would they find a "bad" one? Nope.

[sawyersick]

1 through 69 because you gotta twin with me

OMG ASDFGHJKL

aight here goes bitchez

1. are you religious?

nahh but my parents sent me to church camp when I was in elementary school??? For the cheap childcare I guess???

2. what animal do you think you’re most like?

I haven’t thought about this much but I think a field mouse!!

3. how do you take your coffee?

never……………………… I hate coffee

4. how old were you when you had your first kiss?

my mom’s bosses son forced himself on me when we were 6 lol so I don’t count that……….. so 15 i guess (according to my friend, if there’s no hormones it doesn’t count lol)

5. museum date or aquarium date?

AQUARIUM AQUARIUM AQUARIUM

6. do you have any tattoos or piercings? do you want more?

Just my ears are pierced and I have a whale (badly) tattooed on my hip I’ll post pix if you want but its pretty uggo

I want another whale on the other side so I’ll be symmetrical and a triangle hand tat….. maybe an eyeball tat (a tattoo of an eyeball…. not one on my eye lol)? I’m not really interested in anymore piercings tho

7. favorite fruits?

strawberries!!!

8. favorite vegetables?

when I was 12 I ate so many carrots my skin turned orange and my mom thought I had jaundice

also I heckin love mushrooms

9. i’ll only date you if _____. (fill in the blank)

I’ll only date you if you treat me with respect :(

10. do you cry a lot?

yeah lol at least twice a month minimum

11. who are your closest friends?

I don’t really have any? I’ve felt distant from my irl friends lately so idk probably just demo

12. have you ever been a part of a protest or a march?

I did the walk out for gun violence

13. do you play any video games?

helllllls yeah but I usually only play 3/ds

14. did you ever have an emo or scene phase?

yes and I think I’m still in it rip

15. what color is most of your wardrobe?

I think I wear a lot of blue! and black and white too i guess…… I’m trying to add more reds tho

16. what do you like to do for fun?

I bake and sew and draw! and listen to music

17. what is your biggest fear?

body horror tw for this one rip

being abandoned, being forced to do horrifically gross/unclean stuff, getting my eyes gouged out, getting the bones in my hands broken, getting acid poured on my face, the people around me dying, being forced to eat live slugs, getting my skin peeled off with a knife

18. name a subject you know a lot about.

whales/the ocean in general and baking!! and the band Liily

19. favorite fictional characters?

hm idk? Link and Zelda from LoZ, Clover and Snake and Aoi from 999, rhyme from TWEWY, Maka and Soul from Soul Eater, Storm from the Xmen, Ariel from the Little Mermaid, Chun Li, the Kagamines, Rilakkuma

idk I just thought about characters I have merch for

20. do you read a lot? what are your favorite books?

I used to??? Haven’t had the time for it in a while though and I’ve been reading a lot of how-to books as of late….. I really liked the Legend trilogy though

21. how would you describe your style?

art style and fashion style would both be classified as “cute but tries to be edgy” I think

22. did you have a favorite stuffed animal when you were little? do you still own it?

Yes!! a pastel elephant with a rattle in it named Elephant (very creative I know) He’s in my stuff somewhere now and this question reminded me to go find him again

23. what’s something most people love that you hate?

hmmm…. sports? mustard? airpods???? idk

24. do you think you’re a good singer?

actually yes? I wanna be in a band but I’m lowkey afraid of singing in front of people I know but have no problem doing it in front of an audience of strangers hmu if you’re in the SF bay area I’ve written 6 punk songs

25. who do you live with?

my parents and cat

26. favorite desserts?

ice cream, anything with chocolate or whipped cream, creme brulee, lemon tarts

I’m not too picky though lol

27. what is the best decision you’ve made in your life so far?

realizing that I can actually do mostly whatever I want and most things have fewer consequences than I think

also cutting people out of my life that emotionally exhaust me

28. favorite makeup brands?

uhhhh whatever’s cheap and doesn’t make my eyes burn ig urban decay is good when I can afford it

29. favorite clothing stores/brands?

Goodwill??? I used to shop at f21 but I try not to anymore

30. what was your first job?

working at a lake teaching windsurfing and sailing and I still work there

31. do you take a lot of naps?

n o  I absolutely  h a t e  taking naps and try to avoid them

32. what is your favorite part about your body?

hmm I have pretty good hair i think and sometimes my eyes? I have huge (genetic) eyebags tho which gets me down

33. are you more dominant or more submissive?

In day to day life I guess I’m more dominant??? like I make decisions when nobody else wants to :0 also idk intimately since iM aN aDuLt vIrGiN and pretty sex repulsed but probably sub 

34. are you more outgoing or more shy?

outgoing but sometimes it makes me annoying

35. how tall are you?

short…………………………. 4′8/143 cm

36. what is your body type?

uhh hourglass????? maybe pear I got them Thunder Thighs according to the guy who got kicked out of drama club for peeping in the girls changing room

37. favorite flower?

calendula, sunflowers, lavender and dianthus!!

38. favorite planet?

Neptune??????????????????

39. what do you want to dress up as for halloween this year?

I wanna be the bride of frankentstein but in a shiro lolita coordinate to make her look ~fancy~ or the Nancy part of Sid and Nancy if I’m in a relationship by that time

40. do you prefer to date people the same age as you, younger, or older?

Ideally the same age and I’m wary of dating anyone more than 2 years younger or older than me but I’m more willing to date older than younger

41. describe the person you’re in love with/have a crush on in great detail.

yall know who it is already but

in a band, dark hair, kinda tall, very fashionable, coincidentally happens to be the same racial mix as me, good at art, very humble, really sweet, lives in SoCal, has a hand tattoo of milk and “aye yah” on his arm, paints his nails orange, wears a lot of rings, gets freckles in the summer, prefers vanilla over chocolate, ties his shoes the cool way

42. who is your biggest inspiration?

idk at the moment? I like to draw from many inspirations

43. do you have any kinks?

???????????????????????????????????

44. do you own any pets?

one (1) very loving cat

45. which celebrity do people say you look the most like?

……………………….. myself

I literally had to google mixed race celebrities and STILL none look like me lol

46. do you like sports?

not really except I weirdly like baseball

47. have you ever seen a broadway musical?

Yes!! I won tickets to On Your Feet and Charlie and The Chocolate Factory

I also won Hamilton tickets but saw it in SF yall should download the app

48. what is your favorite kind of food?

noodles!!

49. would you rather be a fairy or a mermaid?

MERMAID actually I have a mermaid tail too so

50. what is your instagram?

@wishwhale :)

51. glossy lips or matte lips?

glossy by default because I have chronically dry skin/lips so matte lips are sooooooooooooooo uncomfy but it looks good on other people lol

52. do you like cherry, grape, blue raspberry, watermelon, or green apple jolly ranchers the best?

grape because im weird

53. what are your best personality traits?

I’d like to think that I’m kind and sometimes funny

54. what is your ethnicity?

asian/white

55. what different hair colors have you had?

brown and brown with pink that was supposed to be purple

56. favorite disney princess?

Ariel! bc mermaid

57. favorite album of 2017?

Humanz by Gorillaz  or Deep Dream by Daddy Issues I guess

I was weirdly obsessed with Feel Your Feelings Fool when it came out but I’m not really into it anymore though

58. have you ever had braces?

nah

59. favorite holiday?

Halloween! Because dressing up is fun

60. post a selfie.

how do I make this smaller anyways I don’t normally wear this much makeup but I’m going to a small show tonight

61. are you a good swimmer?

Yes!! I swim once a week at my local pool

62. do you wear jewelry?

I used to wear a lot………. like multiple necklaces and bracelets and rings daily but now I wear my ring every day and a necklace/earrings if I remember

63. can you play any instruments?

I’m learning guitar!!

64. do you have any siblings?

short answer is no but you can dm me for the long answer

65. are your grandparents still alive? how old are they?

just my maternal grandmother and she is almost 90! My paternal grandmother lived to 102 so I’m hoping for those good genes though (I think she would have lived longer because my family suspects elder abuse by my weird aunt)

66. who knows the most about you?

hmm probably Demo or Emily

67. are you a more quiet person or do you talk a lot?

I! Never! Shut! Up!

68. what advice would you give to your 13 year old self?

shut the fuck up you stupid bitch you arent cool

69. how many pillows do you sleep on?

two

[travelvui]

Best Things to do in Seoul | Seoul Travel Guide

Year after year, Seoul has grown in popularity among travelers thanks to the spreading of K-pop and K-drama. The invasion of Gangnam Style on our radios hurries us up to make a trip to the Land of the Morning Calm.

The most rewarding journeys often require us to immerse ourselves deep in the destination’s culture. If you are planning a trip to Seoul, make sure that you fill your bucket list with activities that touch all the quintessential aspects of the city.

Read on our article to get more ideas for your dream list.

1. GO AROUND THE CITY IN A TOUR BUS

What

Seoul City Tour Bus is a government-run bus system that was launched in 2000 to help visitors get to know Seoul and its many attractions in a less time-consuming way.

The buses depart from the Gwanghwamun Station (Subway Line 5), Exit 6, near Koreana Hotel, every 30 minutes or 1 hour, depending on the routes. There are single-level and double-decker buses for visitors to choose from. These two different kinds of deck-marking buses follow different traveling paths. Ticket holders can get on and off at any stop along their routes.

Headphones are equipped in the buses for sightseers to listen to tour information in English, Korean, Japanese or Chinese. Day and night tours are available.

Why

One of the first things to do when arriving in a new destination is taking in the overall look of it. And these comfortable buses fulfil this need in the fastest and cheapest way. Go with them to get familiar to Seoul and reach many of the city’s main attractions with ease.

This service is perfect for those who do not have the luxury of time to cover a lot of Seoul’s must- sees at a more relaxing pace. Enjoy a whole day of sightseeing for a mere 12,000 won ($10.90) on single-decker or 15,000 won ($13.31) on double-deckers.

Highlights along the routes

The starting point 

Gwanghwamun Gate is the main gate of Gyeongbukgung Palace. You can stay and take pictures at this entirely made of concrete gate for free.

Deoksugung Palace is a historical complex located among modern buildings at Seoul’s busiest intersection. It was built during the Joseon Dynasty and officially became a palace in 1611. Enter the palace grounds through the Geumcheon Bridge, the same bridge where the king’s carriage passed each day in ancient times. 

National Museum of Korea is one of the largest museums in Asia. It houses Korea’s treasure in history, archaeology, and art. Go inside and see the precious pieces such as the Silla Gold Crown, the Pensive Bodhisattva statue, and the 12th century celadon incense burner.

2. VISIT GYEONGBOKGUNG PALACE

What

Gyeongbokgung Palace is the first and main royal palace of the Joseon Dynasty. Its name means “palace greatly blessed by heaven”.

The palace was built in 1395 at an auspicious site according to geomancy. But it had to face many not-so-peaceful events in its own life. The palace was demolished several times and was left in ruins for centuries. Reconstruction efforts commenced in 1867, forming a huge complex with 330 buildings. It was again destroyed during the Japanese occupation in the early 20th century.

Restoration projects continue to this day in an attempt to completely reconstruct Gyeongbokgung Palace to its former status.

Why

Most locals and visitors would agree that Gyeongbokgung Palace is the most beautiful one among five grand palaces the city has to offer. People come to this royal place for its history and culture as well as the grandiose architecture. Free guided tours are available in English, Japanese, and Chinese.

Visiting the palace is like stepping into the set of a Korean historical drama. The experience is complete with locals wearing traditional costumes. Rent a hanbok (traditional Korean costume) and take a photo that looks straight out of history!

Most notable features of the Gyeongbokgung PalaceThe changing of the Royal Guard is something really interesting to watch. It draws a lively picture in front of our eyes to tell us exactly how thing happened in the past. Each ceremony will have guards in royal costumes, celebrating shift changing with traditional weapons in hands and music by traditional instruments. You have chance to witness it twice a day at 10:00 and 14:00 (except on Tuedays).

Kyeonghoe-ru is one of the National Treasures of Korea. It is the country’s largest pavilion that is supported by 48 stone pillars. 

Kyonghoe means “joyful meeting” – an apt name for a spacious pavilion sitting on a lotus pond. 

National Folk Museum is the displaying place of over 4,000 historical artifacts that reflect the way of life of Korean people in the old days. The display gives visitors a close look into Korean agricultural lifestyles.

3. GO BACK IN TIME AT BUKCHON HANOK VILLAGE

What

Bukchon Hanok Village is an old village located in the heart of Seoul. This place attracts people with its myriad traditional houses dating back to the Joseon Dynasty, which are called hanok by the locals.

The village once was the residential quarter of nobles and high-ranking officials. This once-upon-a-time prestige living area is still home of Seoulites up to the present. Nowadays, there are hanok that serve as people’s homes; and there are hanok that live their lives as a restaurant, a café, a shop or a museum.

If you want to know how Bukchon Hanok Village positions itself in relation to royal places that it is connected with in some ways, then the answer is: It sits between Gyeongbokgung Palace and Changdeokgung Palace.

Why

Lounging at this long history village gives us the feeling of traveling back in time in a giant time machine. Yes, you have many other fellow travelers there with you to join this thrilling adventure.

It is a chance to step back in time and have a closer look into Seoul of the olden days. Just let yourself get lost in the narrow alleys long enough to soak up all the beautiful things of the hanok, which are uniquely built with tiled roofs and patterned walls.

Bukchon Hanok Village offers a stark contrast to the modern buildings that can be seen from a distance. Photo spots are marked for travelers who want to take the best pictures showing the old houses and the Seoul skyline in the background.

Complete the experience with a cup of coffee at a local café and watch people seeking their own doses of nostalgia.

Visitor information

Admission to the village is free while some museums and workshops in the village collect an entrance fee.Free walking tours are available; they start at Unhyeongung Palace, Anguk Station. Bukchon Hanok Village is a residential area so visitors are advised to keep the noise level as low as possible.

4. HAVE A CITY VIEW AT N SEOUL TOWER

What

N Seoul Tower, widely known as Namsan Seoul Tower, is a major landmark and tourist attraction in Seoul. It is situated on top of Namsan Mountain, at the height of 236.7 metres.

This tower is Korea’s first broadcast tower, transmitting radio and TV signals since 1972. It was opened to the public in 1980, allowing visitors to access the tower’s observation deck and other features.

The landmark was given its new name, N Seoul Tower, to reflect the new modernized look of it. After undergoing renovation, the tower now boasts a digital lighting system that can be redesigned to show lighting art for various events, holidays, and special occasions.

The N Seoul Tower is open the whole year and is accessible by cable car, bus, or private vehicle. The Seoul City Tour Bus also stops at the tower.

Why

No words can describe the breathtaking view of Seoul from the top of the tower. At this Seoul’s highest viewing point, we can enjoy a panoramic view of the city without any obstruction.

Start your thrilling experience from Namsan Orumi, a free outdoor elevator that takes you to the cable car station.

Spend some time at the romantic Roof Terrace and swear your undying love through “love locks” at the garden. It’s just like a scene from a Korean drama!

Must-do things at Namsan Seoul Tower

Get a 360-degree panorama of Seoul at the 

Digital Observatory on the third floor of the tower. Watch the LCD display to learn more about Seoul and Namsan Mountain.

Enjoy a romantic dinner at N Grill - This restaurant offers the amazing views of Seoul from any table you choose. Savor the French courses presented by Michelin-star chef, Duncan Robertson. 

Learn the once hidden secrets of the broadcast tower at Seoul Tower Plaza. A media art exhibit is constantly on display and many cultural programs are available. Then take a leisurely walk along the walking trail at the terrace.

5. SHOP AT MYEONGDONG SHOPPING DISTRICT

What

Myeongdong is one of the main shopping districts in Seoul. This shopper drawer cares for every need of visitors. People are pleased with its beautiful mix of shopping providers, from department stores, modern malls, international retailers, factory outlets to small street boutiques.

The shopping district features trendy clothes, accessories, shoes, bags, and beauty products.

Among a wide variety of merchandise on offer, Korean cosmetics are the most sought after stuff. All time favorites and new creations are available at its thousands of cosmetic shops and skincare stores. Popular brands like The Face Shop, Missha, Nature Republic and Skin Food all join the show there.

Why

Myeongdong is a one-stop venue for shopping, dining, and entertainment. Mingle with the youthful crowd and absorb the energetic vibe of Seoul through its elegant fashion, delicious food and amusing music.

Myeongdong is the place to go for Korean beauty products, which are the same brands used by Korean stars. Locals would advise you to buy Korean cosmetics only at Myeongdong. The shops are generous with samples and they will give you more if you buy from them.

Non-residents who spend more than 30,000 won ($27.22) at eligible shops (shops displaying Tax-Free logos) can claim a tax refund for their purchases. This rule applies to the whole Korea.

Top things to do in Myeongdong

Of course, shopping is the main activity in Myeongdong. Splurge at designer shops like Louis Vuitton, Bulgari, Ralph Lauren, and Lacoste. Explore department stores such as Lotte, Shinsegae and Noon Square. Collect cosmetic samples at Korean beauty and skincare shops that line the two main streets of Myeongdong.

Gorge on street food In Seoul, the best street food can be found in Myeongdong. Try out local fare like dried squid, fish cakes, and tteokbokki.

If you go in spring or autumn, you might chance upon the Myeongdong Festival. Get crazy in the flurry of activities with parades, music and dance performances.

[samanthasroberts]

6 Real Crime Waves From History That Were Hilariously Insane

Thanks to the news, it’s easy to feel that right now is the most dangerous time to be alive. However, the truth is that the world in general keeps getting safer. You see, not only was the past lousy with criminal terrors, but ye crime waves of olde were also bit more … eccentric. Case in point …

6

A Bootleggers’ Turf War Included Tank Battles And Bomber Planes In 1920s Illinois

Illinois was both a great and terrible place to be a beer fan during Prohibition. Sure, there was no real shortage of booze, but there was a decent chance you’d be shot while drinking it. But while we all know about the glamorous gangland violence of Al Capone’s Chicago, a wholly different criminal empire was tearing it up in the southern part of the state at that time: the hillbilly mafia. And when they got into fights, it wasn’t with blunderbusses and cussin’, but with homemade tanks and aerial bombs.

During Prohibition, the booze king of Southern Illinois was a bootlegging antihero named Charlie Birger. He was loved because he drove the KKK out of the area, omitting that he did so mostly because they kept trying to steal his liquor. Soon after, he joined forces with the Shelton brothers, who agreed to take a cut of the profits from Birger’s speakeasies in exchange for providing him with only the most primo hooch directly from Florida. And if Floridians use it to blot out their reality, you know that’s some powerful hooch.

The partnership quickly dissolved, however, and the two sides went to war. Like, actual war. The Sheltons’ retribution involved attacking Birger with an armored truck they’d made themselves which rolled through the streets equipped with “an assembly of weapons” — i.e. a freaking tank.

As if that wasn’t enough, the brothers then performed perhaps the first aerial bombing on U.S. soil ever when a plane they hired dropped a few bottles of nitroglycerin wrapped in dynamite over one of Birger’s hideouts. You might be okay with dozens of people dying on the street, and you might be okay with criminals blasting each other with Tommy Guns, but when your criminal element is better-armed than the Army Reserve, it’s time to move.

5

19th-Century Sexual Harassers Were So Bad That Women Would Stab Them

While it’s oddly comforting to know that street harassment is not a modern problem, we should all long for a return of the Edwardian era, and not only because their catcalls involved complimenting a lady’s ankles and expressing a strong desire to experience the sublime sight of her ravishing bosom. At least in our great-great-grandmothers’ day, harassment had to be done face-to-face, which gave them a lot more options regarding what to do with said faces.

By the end of the 19th century, it became commonplace to fend off unwanted advances by plucking one’s hatpin out of one’s fashionably enormous hats and stabbing the fucker. These were no puny little thumbtacks, either — they could be well over a foot long and do fatal damage.

San Francisco Sunday Call Cutting-edge fashion.

One woman even forced robbers from a moving train armed with nothing but her hatpin, while 100 factory workers all wielding theirs fought off police who had come to make one of them as a political prisoner. You simply don’t see that kind of sisterhood anymore. Two women in Chicago, upon the former’s discovery of her husband’s infidelity with the latter, “drew hatpins and circled each other, duel-style, until policemen broke it up.” Cops just don’t get called to bust up hatpin phalanxes anymore these days.

And while today there’d be badly kempt rioting in the streets if dudes got stabbed every time they “accidentally” brushed a woman’s derriere on the sidewalk, 19th-century society still had a strict “gentleman or GTFO” attitude. Reporters were only too happy to dub someone a harasser, or “masher.” Even asking “insulting questions” was all it took to find yourself cast as the mustache-twirling villain. It was such an accepted part of society that it became a trope in the fiction of the era, and newspapers printed tutorials on how to get the most out of your deadly accessory, mostly by encouraging the lady to go straight for the balls. The clothes might make the man, but a hatpin can reverse that process in a pinch.

Brooklyn Museum Repeat: One foot long. Right through the balls.

Unfortunately, errant hatpins had a nasty habit of stabbing people by accident, too. At least, that was the purported reasoning behind laws banning or regulating hatpins — which, coincidentally, women weren’t allowed to vote against. Those laws are presumably defunct now, so if any fashion industry moguls happen to be reading, please bring back ridiculously huge hats and their pins. Plenty of people need reminding of that particular fashion tip.

4

New York Had a Gang Of Child Criminals Run By A Kindly Matron

When Fredericka Mandelbaum emigrated from Prussia to New York City in the mid-19th century, all she wanted was for her husband and herself to eke out a modest living to feed their children. She didn’t count on becoming the country’s first female crime boss.

Starting out as a snazzy street peddler, Mandelbaum discovered there was a fortune to be made befriending the countless Dickensian pickpockets in the city and buying their stolen wares. “Marm” Mandelbaum then used her motherly charms to recruit these baby criminals as her own private ragamuffin army.

Valerian Gribayedoff To supplement her regular muffin army.

Mother Mandelbaum used her stolen-goods-for-candy-and-affection racket to move up in the criminal world, leasing a store as a front from where she ran her operations, which ranged from financing bank robberies to moving stolen livestock. As a devotee of continuing education, she used the back as a classroom to teach her young delinquents how to become better at crime, a sort of finishing school for repeat offenders. She particularly exalted her female students, whom she was proudly saving from “wasting their lives being housekeepers” — a weird glass ceiling to break. With her sharp eye for business and nurturing of young talent, Mandelbaum soon had enough resources to buy the most important thing for a criminal: friends in high places. She had everyone from the local cab drivers to the police to the city’s highest-powered defense attorneys in her pocket.

In the end, it took a private detective agency hired by the district attorney to bring her down, as no local cop dared to raise a hand against Mother. But before the law could close in, Mandelbaum simply packed up and retired to Canada, making everyone to feel bad for never visiting. She lived there quietly under an assumed identity until her supposed death in 1894. Rumor had it that her coffin, transported back to New York City, was filled with stones, and she had in truth returned in the flesh under the name Madame Fuchs, indicating how few of them she gave. In any case, at her funeral, many mourners reported having been pickpocketed. It’s what she would have wanted.

3

Bandits Used To Steal Wigs All The Time

These days, a secondhand wig is worth about as much as the cheap bald bastard who bought it. But in the days of dandies, having a fancy wig was both necessary and expensive. That meant wigs, which cost about as much as the average worker made in a year, were right alongside jewels and cash on every highwayman’s wish list.

Wigmaking was a process that took “six men six days working from sunup to sundown” and a complicated pre-UPS importing system. That’s a lot of money for something that looks like a Bond villain’s pet died on your head. In fact, getting your hands on a bigwig’s big wig was such a score that it made other types of robbery not worth the risk. Instead of slyly trying to cut a purse or pick a pocket, all a would-be bandit had to do was cut a hole or two in the back of a carriage, grab a few fistfuls of powdered perfection, and take off before their now-unsightly owners had any idea what hit them. Boom, that there’s a year’s worth of absinthe.

And with way less needless crotch contact than pickpocketing.

One story tells of a thief so bold as to simply replace his mark’s wig with his own cheap rug when he wasn’t looking. The mark, not feeling the difference, simply walked away, not realizing he had lost a fortune in doll hairs. Unfortunately, the bandits too fell victim to fashion. Wigs eventually stopped being stylish, thereby killing one the criminal underworld’s sillier sources of revenue.

2

17th-Century Dairy Farmers Used To Dye Their Cheese To Jack Up The Price

Food coloring is an important staple in today’s food, especially when it contains little to no actual food. That’s why we’d be more upset at finding out that Cheetos do in fact contain cheese. But back in the day, fake cheese was a huge scandal.

Before we needed an advanced chemistry degree to read food labels, a food’s color was often a sign of its quality. For cheese, a bright orange color signified that it came from quality breeds of cows that eat certain types of grass, which affected the taste greatly. However, in the 17th century, English farmers had figured out that they could get more bang for their cheese by separating the cream first and using it for other products. But it was the cream that had all that orangey goodness, and while their now-white cheese was of the same quality, there’s such a thing as branding. Paint those McDonald’s golden arches green, and it’s game over, baby. Game over.

So the cheese makers came up with a way to disguise their stupid white skim cheese as the full-fat good stuff. They started using natural dyes from a number of plants, including saffron, marigolds, and carrots, and the monocled masses were none the wiser. Later, they started using an extract called annatto, which is what Kraft now uses instead of artificial coloring, because you can even make fraud more lucrative by making it “vintage.” In a matter of decades, the ruse had become an industry standard, being used by cheesemongers all across the UK and the U.S. (except New England, as they prefer to dine on their own smugness). However, the practice of coloring cheese eventually backfired, as it became so common that orange cheese came to be regarded as low-quality instead, begetting an industry of “artificial cheese products” and giving previously exalted cows low self-esteem.

1

A Gang Of One-Legged Men Terrorized Australia

Everything in Australia is deadlier than it should be, and that extends to their old-fashioned gangs. Around the turn of the last century, the scourge roaming (or rather, hobbling around) the streets of Melbourne was a gang called Crutchie Push, and it consisted almost entirely of one-legged men.

They might not have been fast, but death was certain if you were caught by the Crutchie Push (“push” being so hilariously appropriate Australian slang for “gang”). It was a requirement to be one limb short of a set to join the gang, meaning most of them went into battle already on crutches — except for one berserker who still had both legs and ran into fights swinging a brick stuffed inside his sweater sleeve like a low-rent Mr. Fantastic. From there, everyone else (hopefully in choreographed synchronicity) balanced on one leg and used their crutches as weapons. Their signature move was to jab an opponent in the stomach with the tip of the crutch, then swing it around and beat him with it while he was doubled over. It was a surprisingly effective way to force compliance from shop owners and random people of whom they demanded money, food, and booze. Still more reliable than Social Security.

But for a bunch of people who were physically unable to run, the Crutchie Push were bizarrely hard to catch. You’d think you could just lead them to a staircase and be done with it, but when an officer became involved in a brawl with leader Valentine Keating, the one-legged man actually outran the officer before he could be arrested. That’s either Olympic-level crutch skills or a hilariously unfit cop. Eventually, the police became so frustrated with the gang that they assembled a task force made up by the ten most violent police officers in Australia. These “Terrible Ten” were sent out to track the Crutchie Push down and beat them with hoses, because there is apparently a very fine line between legitimate Australian history and the fever dream of a wealthy conservative business owner looking to build a casino atop an Army veterans clinic.

Keating was eventually imprisoned for beating a cop to death with his crutches, after which he … um, went on to a nice, quiet life as a barkeep until his death from tuberculosis. In all of his days tending bar, he never called the police to break up a fight. Why use them as a crutch if you can beat a man to death with your own?

You don’t have to steal to get this wig for your dog.

Also check out 8 Unsolved Crimes That Were Clearly Committed By Satan and 4 Terrifying Historical Crimes No One Can Explain.

Subscribe to our YouTube channel, and check out Why Thomas Edison Was History’s Biggest Dick, and watch other videos you won’t see on the site!

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Get intimate with our new podcast Cracked Gets Personal. Subscribe for funny, fascinating episodes like Rape, Pee Funnels and The Dolphin: Female Soldiers Speak Up and Inside The Secret Epidemic Of Cops Shooting Dogs, available wherever you get your podcasts.

Source: http://allofbeer.com/6-real-crime-waves-from-history-that-were-hilariously-insane/

from All of Beer https://allofbeer.wordpress.com/2019/03/25/6-real-crime-waves-from-history-that-were-hilariously-insane/

[inhopswetrust]

Brewing Tales #2: Karel, Remy and Sven from “Byal Shtark (White Stork)”

Karel, Remy and Sven are three dudes from 2 different countries who by chance and choice ended up in a third country (Bulgaria) where they now make craft beer. 

They call it “White Stork”, they got great ideas and we sat down to talk about beer, life and stuff. 

Remy and Karel at the 2016 Bucharest Beer Festival. 

Keep reading for the full interview :)

In Hops We Trust (IHWT): So who is who?

Karel: Well, the company has a flat structure so we are equal but having different responsibilities. In the end, I make the final decisions (and try to be involved in everything that has to do with “White Stork”), Remy comes up with mindblowing recipes and Sven does all the other stuff - sales and marketing and general brand management.

IHWT: How long ago did you start “White Stork”

Karel: Started was a different story. 2012 the guys from Divo Pivo and Rory (AH!) started “White Stork”. The stork was sold in 2012 and 2013 at “Rhythm and beer” festival and then I picked it up. At the end of 2013 we got in contact with everybody at “White Stork” and we financed the first commercial batch you now know as “White Stork”, which launched in December 2013. So that marks my era here.  

IHWT: So Karel you are from the Netherlands, same as Sven and Remy is from the UK. How did you guys meet each other?

Remy: Through Lyubo (the owner of KANAAL)

Sven: Lyubo is the spider in the web. Most of what has to do with craft beer in Bulgaria, he is there.

Karel: When I was living in London, there were roughly 6-8 craft breweries within a 1 mile range of where I lived. Remy worked for a couple of them. Later on, he came to Bulgaria for a visit, Lyubo connected us and we met at rhythm and beer. The rest is history :)

IHWT: So you are from 2 different countries and you met in a third country. Oh the wonders of globalization. So Karel how did you end up here?

Karel: I came here to invest in food and beverages. I started with wine and moved on to craft beer.

IHWT: And the rest of you guys?

Remy: I came over looking to make beer but I didn't really know how I was going to go about doing this.

Sven: Me? Well, how do half of the foreigners in Bulgaria, end up living here? IHWT: Bulgarian girlfriends? (everybody laughs, and we trail off about blending in, standing out and beer-related tattoos)

IHWT: So how did you get started in the vast colorful world of craft beer?

Remy: Well, in the uk you are exposed to it. Karel: You were illegal. You were not even at the age of drinking :D

Remy: When I was 17-18 (2009-2010) the first brewdogs were coming out and I happened to be in London, so chance I guess.

Karel: I came into craft beer through champagne and wine making. I moved to London when the movement was really coming up. I started brewing 4 years ago.

IHWT: Do you listen to music when you brew?

Karel: Yeah, we also watch TV when we brew.

Remy: Yeah I like some background music while I brew.

IHWT: So nothing specific - just for the ambiance?

Remy: Yeah, while we wait.

Karel: Waiting takes up a lot of the brewing time. You spend a lot of time twiddling your thumbs.

Remy: On a smaller kit. On a bigger kit (a commercial system) you have a lot of things to do all the time.You are never really waiting.

IHWT: When was the last time you had a lager?

Sven: Last Thursday

Remy: Two days ago. There is nothing wrong with lager! IHWT: No, I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with it, I’m just ask this question out of curiosity ;)

Karel: The thing about lager is that you have to make the same thing year in, year out. No change. But it’s also amazing that the beer stays the same through centuries.

Remy: You need a fuckin PhD to be able to do it. That’s the most skilled brewing job ever.  The problem is that we have all been exposed to some fantastic beers so after while you stop being able to taste. It does nothing for you.

Karel: I had a lager after leaving the beer temple in Amsterdam. And I had some sushi with it. The lager with the sushi tasted awesome. I was amazed.

Sven: I grew up with Grolsch, because I lived near the factory. To this day, I enjoy it.

IHWT: What is the best thing about what you do.

Remy: It’s a long list.

Karel: It’s a very long list but I think creativity tops it.

Remy: Best thing for me is seeing someone drinking the product. For sure. Seeing them enjoy it.

Karel: I think that is number 5 on the list :) IHWT: So you do have a list?! (ha-ha-laughter ensues) So no “one best thing”

All together: No, there’s many cool things.

Sven: The scene is definitely up there. It’s a particular type of people that do and enjoy it. People that value creativity, art and quality.

Karel: And you make something you love!

Remy: And you never have to wear a suit!

IHWT: And what is the weirdest thing that has happened to you because you do what you do?

Remy: People recognising you. I can never get used to that.

Karel: And also the weird places you get this recognition from. Like, I would be walking my dog, I go get a coffee and the guy behind the counter would be like “Hey, I saw you in that interview!”

Sven: Doing TV interviews is weird. Listening back to yourself is the weirdest.

IHWT: I hear that. Listening to your own voice is...well it’s weird.

IHWT: What do you think about beer rating sites? Over or underrated?

Remy: Neither. You take it with a pinch of salt. You don’t take it literally but it gives you a good general overview.

Sven: It gives you an indication.

Karel: And good feedback. They push as to make better beer, all the time.

Sven: You should still trust your own instincts. I was astounded at some of the festivals to see people going nuts just about untapping new beers.

IHWT: It kinda makes you chase badges more than it fosters community.

Sven: Don’t underestimate the collection instincts of people :D I for one, have met people there with whom I still keep in touch.

IHWT: So you guys don’t get annoyed by trolls and negative comments without constructive criticism?

Karel: Not at all. A good example would be “Sofiiski Weise: which is a difficult beer to make. We experimented with it and some people don’t get it so we take opinion into account but we made something new and that was our goal.

IHWT: What do you guys think is the most overrated style at the moment?

Remy: That is a personal opinion.

IHWT: Which is exactly what I’m looking for :)

Sven: Trappists are overrated.

Remy: Yeah, I’d say the are.

Karel: I was just about to say that. I would say all the traditional classic beers - Belgians, Germans and the like.

Sven: They rely a lot on status and just because of that people prescribe qualities to them that are not always there.

IHWT: And what would you say is the most underrated style?

Sven: I really love my Hefeweizen but some might disagree.

Karel: I like Kellerbier. Fuck that’s good

IHWT: That’s cool. We say fuck around here :) Remy: I think low ABV and session beers. 4 and under. It’s great to drink an imperial stout that's 11% but some days you want to relax a little bit and have something easy at the end of the day.

Karel: I also think saison is very underrated.

IHWT: So let’s talk about “White Stork” now. First of all, why “White Stork”?Karel: The beer or the name?

IHWT: The name.

Karel: Because the guys were making beer in the village of “Mramor”, which has the highest concentration of storks in Bulgaria. It is also a mythical, symbolic creature. It brings children, so don’t drink “White Stork” while ovulating! :D

IHWT: For those who don’t know, there’s a lot of storks in Bulgaria as it is one of their first stops on the way up from Africa.

IHWT: Remy, what do you think about craft culture at the moment? Also, what should happen? Remy: Here or everywhere?

IHWT: Both.

Remy: It’s good. Especially here, it’s been really good. Fast developing. Elsewhere, it has just matured. But you can look back at places like England, America and Central Europe and there are stages to craft brewing so you can look back and figure out what is going to happen here in the next 15 years.

IHWT: What do you think is the next big thing? Remy: At the moment? Everybody is doing BIG imperial stouts right now. Strong flavoured imperial stouts. Really rich and thick. That’s at the moment and it will probably last for the next six months. In the summer, there will hopefully be another wave of new sours. Originally the lot of the craft brewers were mostly sticking to malt hops, yeast and natural additions. Now a lot of people are going “Well, to us it matters mainly how it tastes and how it is”. As long as the process is pure and high in quality it doesn’t matter that much if it is, for example, orange peel or orange pure. Just like Omnipolo are using high quality natural flavourings right now, instead of actual herbs, fruits of whatever.

Karel: And in just a couple of years these guys went beyond the quality of Mikkeler, Evil Twin and De Molen. They haven’t been around for long but they are quite disruptive.

IHWT: Because they don’t give a s***. Sven: Exactly! IHWT: And that is very important. Not bowing to convention is one of the few sure ways to progress.

IHWT: Is it safe to say that you are trying to do the same? In the last year you put out a Berliner Weiss with yogurt yeast bacteria (found only in Bulgaria), the Pop my Vishna sour,  and the Chilly Stout.

Karel: Yes. This is one of our main goals. So we tried making different things. We visited a lot of different producer to gather ideas. The first sours were very experimental. We are looking to gradually improve and make really special sour beer. But for the local market, it is way too early, because people don’t understand it yet. So last year we tried to get into the middle of this ground, introducing the sour product. And now we want to go further and improve it.

IHWT: So what should people expect from “White Stork” in 2017?

Remy: Everything!

Karel: We will be launching our strawberry cheesecake beer and, right now, we are looking for a place to make this.

IHWT: The strawberry cheesecake?

Sven: We made a special test badge for an event last week so it is still a secret!

IHWT: So what else?

Karel: Well it is not a secret but is yet in development stage. In January (2017) we will brew the real thing. So this is one thing. We will also come out with a new stout - probably a milk stout.

Sven: There will be a transformation of the Stork. New logo and new branding.

IHWT: So the stork is maturing?

Remy: Pretty much. It has now been almost 4 years as it is. It has evolved a lot in that time so that evolution needs to transcend into the image as well as the beer.

IHWT: I’ve had all your beer in the last years and I think The Stork has become a little more punk? More out there?

Karel: Yes, indeed! (high five time). In the early summer we are also coming out with a saison/grissette.

Remy: A twist on a grissette. A little lighter and more refreshing than a saison.

Karel: You will see a couple more collaborations. The way we’re gonna go will be more punk and creative. We’re going to continue breaking barriers and getting people to drink different stuff.

IHWT: What is the process behind the development of new recipes?

Karel: We are bored and we talk :D

Remy: Whenever we have open slots in between work, we just talk about what can we do, what has not been done, what ingredients can we bring in.There’s no special process behind it.

IHWT: Tell me something about “White Stork” that can’t be found on the internet.

Karel: You’re gonna put it on the internet so we can’t tell you!

IHWT: This is why I want it dude :D

Karel: We don’t have an office. This here is our office.

IHWT: Finishing up - what do you guys like? In life. The 3 top things for example.

Remy: I can’t say that on record (laughing).

(it actually takes them a while)

Karel: Music, art , food, mountains (even though I’m from the flattest country in the world)

Sven: Same here. Love the mountains!

IHWT: What about you Remy?

Remy: Chicks!

Sven: With dicks!

At this point the interview went into total ROFL and we just kept drinking our beer and chatting about stuff.

PS: Remy likes regular chicks! (not that there is anything wrong with any other type)

[connorrenwick]

Where I Work: Rachel Smith of & SMITH

Rachel Smith is partner of London-based creative agency & SMITH, a firm she co-founded with Dan Bernstein in 2007. & SMITH specializes in branding for hotels, food, and drink, working with companies like Liberty London, LUX* Resorts, Yo! Sushi, Dishoom, Shake Shack, and Ikor Resorts, to name a few. The team works out of their Stoke Newington studio, a light-filled space that’s acts as a white canvas for colorful artwork, plants, and creative ideas. For this month’s Where I Work, Rachel takes us inside to see the agency’s workspace while sharing about her work process.

What’s your studio/work environment like?

Our studio used to be a piano factory, so we have amazing light, huge windows, and very high ceilings. It’s in residential Stoke Newington, a pretty peaceful part of the world and we’re close to a beautiful park and the best local shop in London, I’ve just had a great ice lolly from there. After a good Friday tidy the studio can look pretty cool – but most of the time it’s a very ‘lived in’ space.

How is your space organized/arranged?

We have one long bank of desks, where most people sit. My business partner Dan and I used to be there, too, but we got evicted when the studio got a little larger a few years ago. We now hop between ‘the cave’ (our small meeting room), our main table, next to a designer, out and about, or at home.

How long have you been in this space? Where did you work before that?

Around 6 years. When Dan and I set up in 2008 we were in a small shipping container in Shadwell with a walk outside to get to the sink and toilets. This was definitely a step up for us, and we were so happy to get this space. At the time most of our staff lived within walking difference, which was a big plus.

If you could change something about your workspace, what would it be?

Eating lunch together is one of my favourite things, so maybe a slightly larger communal table. We can all squeeze round – but it can get friendly! I’ve come up with a few terrible ideas over the years on how to extend it – but it thankfully never happens. We do need one more meeting room, oh and a sofa to have a nap on would be nice. I used to nap on a sofa in our old studio in my ‘post working from home’ days.

Is there an office pet?

Nope, I’m not an animal person, I think I’m missing a gene, or I have a pebble for a heart. My studio mostly loves animals though – so I have said if anyone wants a dog, they can bring it in – but they don’t think I’m serious. They’re probably right, so they’ve made friends with a few local cats instead.

Do you require music in the background? If so, who are some favorites?

Yes, we love music in the studio. Our Studio Manager Aimee is a DJ, so she’s mainly responsible for our daily listening. She describes it as a mixture of ‘Soul, R&B, Yacht Rock, Disco and 90’s Nostalgia with a peppering of the 6 Music playlist’.

If it’s left to me, it’s 80/90’s pop, a power ballad or two and some 90’s hip hop classics – I’m very content being stuck in time. A studio classic is Private Dancer by Tina Turner for a Friday end of day, get it up nice and loud to finish the week. I also like to kick projects off with a relevant tune to get the team in the mood, although that did result in Christmas tunes on the hottest day of the year recently. Sorry Sam.

How do you record ideas?

I love an iPhone note or photograph. My iPhone and I are very good friends. It’s either that or any random bit of paper on my desk, which I then usually lose. I’m very messy.

Do you have an inspiration board? What’s on it right now?

We have three inspiration places in the studio, one for magazines, one for general inspiration and one place where Aimee puts up which is new and interesting places to eat, drink, or sleep. On it right now… see above!

What is your typical work style?

At the moment, it’s a bit tightly packed. I had a baby last year so I’m still working on the best work/life balance. I used to only work in the office and enjoyed home being a work-free place. In general, I’m always better much later in the day. We have flextime at work so you can be an early bird or a late worker, and the hours can adapt to suit you.

What is your creative process and/or creative workflow like? Does it change every project or do you keep it the same?

The key to starting every project is spending time with a client, experience the brand and carefully listen to what they are trying to do. No project can start without this.

After that it’s flexible depending on the project and team size. Ideally, we’d have full project briefing all together, then we like to physically immerse ourselves in the world (getting as much eating, sleeping, and drinking done as possible). Sometimes we have a focused team on a creative project for 48 hours – with no distractions.

There’s a midway crit and a presentation at the end to rest of the team. This is way before it gets anywhere near the client.

What kind of art/design/objects might you have scattered about the space?

We probably should have a few more. We have a cool Supermundane mural that he painted for us when we moved in. Oh, and I like our lightbulb Disco sign too, and a large female figure cut out of an illustration we did for a recent project.

Are there tools and/or machinery in your space?

There’s a large walk-in cupboard which has all of our cutting/mock-up equipment in, masking tape, spray mount, rulers, scalpels, etc. Our machinery is just our printer.

What tool(s) do you most enjoy using in the design process?

Scissors, paper, and a nice fat pen. Getting early ideas up on the board and getting busy with some scissors, pens, paper always feels good.

Let’s talk about how you’re wired. Tell us about your tech arsenal/devices.

Just lots and lots of Macs, a mammoth server, and a goliath phone system – all technical terms.

What design software do you use, if any, and for what?

We use InDesign mainly, then Illustrator, Photoshop, After Effects, Sketch, Pages, Numbers, and our trusty steeds Slack and Streamtime. Slack Attack has well and truly hit our studio in the last year.

What’s on your desk right now?

Normally a load of paper, full up A4 Moleskines, and old status reports/quotes plus a few random pens and my 20-year-old calculator that I stole from Pentagram – that calculator and I have seen some good and bad times. But, let’s be honest, I tidied a little for the shoot so you can now see some nice books and a clear desk. Use your imagination to make this look a lot messier.

LUX*

Dishoom

Is there a favorite project/piece you’ve worked on?

Next year’s projects?! If I had to pick a few past projects, I think LUX* Hotels and Resorts work for the sector challenging ideas and our Art Direction work. Then Dishoom for seeing a project start authentically and getting on board with that journey early on with a strong focus on typography. It’s great to have seen Dishoom grow. Nothing is better than being given license to do great work for someone but then seeing the way that comes to life with the rest of the team’s hard work.

Tell us about a current project you’re working on. What was the inspiration behind it?

We’re working on a really exciting vegan ice cream brand at the moment. I can’t talk about the inspiration yet (as I’d have to kill you) but I’ve loved finding out more about that and also how people shop in the frozen aisle. We throw ourselves into each world and learn so much, this can then influence every project that follows in unexpected ways.

Do you have anything in your home that you’ve designed/created?

Look Up Pin badges and cards for my husband’s print company, a screenprint from one of his events, and a chair covered in my mate’s amazing Marwood fabric – but let’s be honest, I hardly designed this one. I bought the fabric, found the chair, and paid someone else to cover it!

I have many hopes for our house, painting ceilings bright yellow, walls in the garden a Yves Klein Blue, a sculptural polystyrene wall above the stairs, or a Sol Le Witt/Emma Kunz inspired coloured pencil wall mural. But alas, I have no time right now – so these things will all have to wait.

via http://design-milk.com/

from WordPress https://connorrenwickblog.wordpress.com/2019/09/24/where-i-work-rachel-smith-of-smith/

[memorytile0-blog]

See How Peppers Are Transformed Into Your Favorite Hot Sauce

Hot sauce is a staple in any kitchen. Scrambled eggs, cold pizza, salad, wings, tacos — you name it, hot sauce makes it taste better. But there is one particular type that is deeply rooted in authentic Mexican flavor: Cholula Hot Sauce.

Cholula was inspired by a generations-old recipe that was originally prepared for the Jose Cuervo family, famous for their Tequila. Even the sauce’s name has a deep Mexican heritage because it is named after a 2,500 year-old city located in the central state of Puebla. It’s the oldest inhabited city in North America, where they handcraft a mix of Mexico’s finest peppers and spices to begin the makings of their signature sauce.

“[Cholula original] is the heart and soul of the brand, and this is a recipe that has never been changed,” says Sharon Nevins, director of brand marketing at Cholula Food Company. “[It] has been in the family and the company all of the years.”

A Rich Tradition

Through those years, the same iconic woman — La Chila — has been featured on the label of their bottles. She’s dressed in white, standing in a yellow brick traditional kitchen ready to use the peppers and vegetables set before her.

According to legend, La Chila was from Puebla, Mexico, and her grandmother taught her how to cook traditional recipes, many of which included the essential ingredient of Mexican peppers. Those most commonly used were habanero, arbol, piquin and/or jalapeno — with habanero being the hottest. Through her cooking lessons, La Chila became very passionate about peppers, and started to find new and creative ways to incorporate them into traditional dishes, including some that are still served today.

Cholula is made with a blend of 80 percent arbol and 20 percent piquin peppers, two peppers that take up to seven months to go from seed to plant, then another three to four months to harvest. In other words, it takes at least 11 months total to grow a usable pepper. “They’re a delicate plant with special requirements,” Padilla says.

Arbol peppers have a balanced heat with a natural, grassy flavor. Piquin peppers, on the other hand, are rich and have a citrusy zest flavor to them.

No need to be intimidated by the sauce, though. Cholula hot sauce rating is 1,000 Scoville units, which is a scale that measures the hotness of a chili pepper. For reference, bell peppers are between zero and 100, while jalapenos are between 2,500 to 5,000. The carolina reaper is currently the hottest pepper in the world, with a rating of around 1.6 million — aka, you’d lose your tongue biting into it.

An Authentic Recipe

Starting with how they handle the seeds, Cholula hot sauce production is an homage to native techniques perfected over generations. “Generation to generation, they collect the chili, removed the seeds, then classified the seeds,” Padilla says. Seeds are organized by their heat, flavor and robustness, which helps growers ensure that they’re only using the best first-grade seeds for the sauce.

In order to retain the authenticity of both the land and the recipe, all peppers in the sauce are sourced in the Americas, with nearly 90 percent originating in Jalisco. The countryside’s mild climate makes it ideal for growing peppers, which grow at around 1,500 to 1,700 feet above sea level through Mexico’s countryside, scattered in small fields. “When you have these small fields, you can have better results,” says Miguel Padilla, the operations manager at the Cholula production facility SANE. The water used for the plants is also free of heavy metals and sourced from local wells in the fields that were used generations ago as well.

Before the sauce is bottled, it goes through a meticulous process. The best arbol and piquin peppers are hand-picked, carefully washed to retain quality and flavor, then laid out in the natural sun — no artificial heat and lighting needed. There, they are under constant supervision during a three-day drying process. Then they are sent to the facility to be ground into a paste and later put through a mixer for consistency and to blend additional spices. The sauce is eventually bottled, topped with a locally made wooden cap, labeled, and shipped out all over the world. Every month the facility produces nearly nine million bottles of hot sauce. Yes, nine million!

Behind the Scenes in the Cholula Factory

Walk into the factory and you can see how technology has helped to keep the original recipe alive. After the peppers are grown and harvested with some serious TLC, they are processed in the factory in giant stainless steel bins.

Factory workers wear surgical masks and hair nets, and those in the pepper washing and soaking station wear white coverall suits, rainboots, and sometimes gas masks. Without those masks, anyone who couldn’t handle spice would find it difficult to withstand the humidity and spice in the air.

Located in downtown Tequila of Jalisco, restaurant Fonda Cholula was named in honor of La Chila and authentic Mexican cuisine. And they serve a menu of — you guessed it — traditional foods complemented by Cholula hot sauce. Every year, thousands of tourists visit the restaurant to get a taste of dishes inspired by the beloved abuelita figure that started it all.

There are six different flavors of Cholula sauce, ensuring that anyone can add a hint of authentic Mexican flavor to their meals. While Cholula original is based on the generations-old original recipe, the newest additions — like sweet habanero — come from the same recipe but with added flavor dimensions. If you want more lime, there’s Chili Lime. For a more smoky flavor, Chipotle. If you can’t handle that much spice, go for the Chili Garlic.

No matter what you use your hot sauce for, with Cholula, you’re guaranteed an authentic Mexican flavor.

Source: https://www.askmen.com/fine_living/wine_dine_archive/how-cholula-is-made.html

[rolandfontana]

Who Pays the Tariffs on China Imports? President Trump vs. CNN and What YOU Can do NOW to Reduce Your China Prices

On May 5, President Trump tweeted that he would be raising tariffs to 25% on $200 billion worth of Chinese products and that he would eventually impose this same tariff rate on pretty much all products from China. Since then, the media has been all over the map on who will be paying for these tariffs. On the one side, we have President Trump and the media favorable to him stating (or at least implying) that “China will be paying these tariffs.” On the other side, we have the media stating (or at least implying) that the U.S. consumer will be paying these tariffs via increased retail prices

Well guess what and no surprise, it ain’t that simple. Truth is a many companies and people from all over the world will be paying the tariff. I say this based in large part on what our international lawyers and international trade lawyers have already seen from the last round of US tariffs.

The onslaught of tariffs is subjecting companies that import Chinese products into the United States to overall price increases and our China lawyers are getting an earful about this from clients that sell their products on relatively thin margins to big retailers like Walmart, Target and Home Depot. Our clients with super strong brand names and eye-popping profit margins are — at least for now — remaining much calmer. Some of our clients have flat out told us that they do not really care about the tariffs. We have a client that pays around $60 for the products it has made in China and then sells those products for $1700 to $2100. How much should it care about a $15 price increase? We have another client that pays 20 cents for the product it has made in China and then sells that product for $12. How much should it care about a 5 cent per unit price increase? So yes, the tariffs do not fall equally on all.

But no matter your profit margin (with some exceptions) and no matter to whom you sell your products, now is the best time to be doing two things: 1) looking into the possibility of at some point diversifying or moving your supply chain out of China, and 2) trying to get your China suppliers to lower your product pricing. Our international lawyers are working nearly non-stop to help our clients diversify their manufacturing to countries outside China — so far this has mostly been to other Asian countries, such as Vietnam, Cambodia, the Philippines, Malaysia, Pakistan, India, Thailand and Taiwan, but also to Mexico, Eastern Europe, Portugal, and Spain and even to Canada and the United States — more so after the announcement of the “new NAFTA” agreement, a/k/a the USMC.

This post is going to focus on who actually will pay the China tariffs, yet in doing so it also sets out some steps you should consider taking now to reduce your China product costs.

I will begin by explaining who will pay the 25% Trump tariffs and I will use a widget as my example, with the following assumptions.

Assume China Factory was manufacturing its widgets and selling them for $100 each before the tariffs.

Assume European Widget Company was buying these widgets from China Factory for $100 each before the tariffs and selling almost all of those widgets in the United States wholesale to Big Box Retailers for $140 which they in turn sell at retail for $280.

Assume China Factory/European Widget Company will now have to pay a 25% tariff on its widgets that go to the United States and further assume this means European Widget Company’s total cost for the widgets (as landed in the US) just went up to $125 because of the US tariffs.

What happens next? Does China Factory turn around and say to European Widget Company “we feel your pain and we badly want to alleviate that (and because China the country is now further subsidizing China Factory) we will cut our widget prices to $75 so your landed US costs will remain at $100, resulting in no change to your US pricing? Under this scenario, China will pay the tariffs.” Is this realistic? Of course not.

Does European Widget Company say to China Factory Company, “Hey that’s really too bad about the U.S. tariffs. Because we so love the US and China we will just pay you the same $100 we have always been paying you for the widgets and we will keep selling them to the US Big Box Retailers for $140. We will incur all losses from the tariffs so neither China nor the US will be impacted in the slightest.” This scenario is equally implausible.

Now let’s throw in some more assumptions, based on what happened with previous rounds of US tariffs against Chinese goods and what to a certain extent is already happening in this round of US tariffs against Chinese goods:

China reduces its income tax rates for Chinese export manufacturers, thereby reducing their overall costs by 4%.

China reduces its VAT rates for Chinese export manufacturers, thereby reducing their overall costs by 4%.

China pushes down the value of the RMB, thereby increasing by 2% the RMB Chinese export manufacturers get from their Dollar and Euro sales.

So right there we have a 12% reduction in costs for China Factory. Note that the numbers above are rough calculations and individual valuations will vary.

What should and what will the European Widget Company do in light of the above numbers? It will go to China Factory and say something like the following:

Monsieur, as you well know, times are tough selling widgets to the United States because of the new and onerous tariffs. We essentially have to pay 25% more than if we were to purchase them from any country other than China. Speaking of other countries, did I tell you we’ve been looking at having some of our other products made in Vietnam or Thailand? I went to both countries last week and they were so nice and they have such great food and I was surprised at how many people in both countries speak French. Do you realize that if we were to have  our widgets made in Vietnam or Thailand we’d be free from the 25% tariffs and free from all this acrimony and risk tied in with the US-China relationship. I have a friend who says the United States and China will at some point cease all trade between them. I don’t think that is possible, do you?

But I keep hearing that China’s recent income tax reductions and VAT rebate increases and RMB devaluations — and who knows what else the Chinese government is doing and will do to subsidize you Chinese manufacturers — has reduced your manufacturing costs by 15% to 20%. With all this it seems you should cut your pricing to us by 20%. I know this will cut into your profits a tiny bit but our profits are going to get cut as well no matter what you do and no matter what happens. Because we have had such a great relationship with you for the last 8 years (including our willingness to overlook your early indiscretions, like when you (1) sold our product in the grey market out the side door; (2) registered OUR trademark in China and we had to convince you to assign it to us or (3) you reduced the steel content in our widgets from 20% to 5% to save money and we only learned of this by enduring massive customer returns of our widgets due to failures and then as compensation you offered us a 5% discount on our next set of purchases), don’t you think it only fair that our two companies share in the profit losses here? Gosh I would hate to spoil our relationship that took us so long to build by moving our widget production to Thailand or Vietnam, which is what my General Manager says we should do.

And in the end, China Factory reduces its prices to European Widget Company by 12% and their new contract makes clear all pricing is in RMB, though payments will be made in Euros.

European Widget Company, is now paying $88 for widgets for which it previously paid $100. If you add the 25% tariff to the new $88 price, European Widget Company is now looking at a new $110 US landed price.

Does European Widget Company then go to its Big Box Retailer buyers and say, “Hey, you have always been great so I am going to keep selling you our widgets for $140 so your profits are not impacted?” No. Does European Widget Company go to its Big Box Retailer buyers and say, “Hey, because of the 25% tariffs I will need to increase my sales price to you by $25 and so I am now going to charge you $165 per widget?” Let’s imagine European Widget Company does this. How will Big Box Retailers respond? There is a 99+ percent chance they will tell European Widget Company “no way” and then talk about how ,”Maybe we should start having our own widgets made in Vietnam or Thailand” and they very well might. For this reason, this scenario is very unlikely.

A more realistic scenario would be for European Widget Company to go to Big Box Retailers and say that its costs have gone up and it is working hard to diversify its widget production outside China, that it has done some exploratory trips to Vietnam and Thailand and will soon be testing some widget manufacturers there, but in the meantime, it needs to raise its prices by $7 and can that price increase work. The Big Box Retailers will say no and trot out their own Vietnam/Thailand/Malaysia/Pakistan/Mexico/Indonesia/India/Philippines/Taiwan scenarios and in the end agree to pay $2 more per widget. And then Big Box Retailers will flip around and raise its retail widget prices anywhere from zero to five dollars.

So in the end, the China government, the China Factory, the European Widget Company, the Big Box Retailers and the Consumers all end up paying some portion of the 25% tariffs. Of course the portions will vary depending on profit margins and on the market and on the industry and on the product and on supply and demand and on the price elasticity of demand and on Chinese government subsidies and tax cuts and RMB devaluations and on the companies involved and on a whole host of other things. But the above scenario is not an unrealistic one and it mimics some of the scenarios our international lawyers saw play out during the last round of tariffs.

So what about the flip side? What about the soybean farmers in the United States who are now likely to get socked by Chinese tariffs against their soybeans? Here is how I see that playing out. These farmers will likely be hurt badly in the short term, but they may end up barely being impacted in the long term. How can that be, when the U.S. was at one time selling approximately $15 billion in soy beans to China annually, which constitutes around 60% of U.S. soybean production? The soybean farmers will all be wiped out, right? Wrong. I am not for a minute going to tell you that America’s soybean farmers will be just fine because that is not likely to be the case. But I am going to tell you that soybeans are essentially a commodity. This means that if the U.S. stops selling soybeans to China, China will get its soybeans from other countries, and the subsequent vacuums created in non-China markets will be filled by U.S. soybean farmers. I mention this not to minimize any impacts but to make clear that U.S. soybean farmers are not going to lose $15 billion a year in sales.

Bottom Line: U.S. tariffs on Chinese goods will in most cases lead to increased pricing/decreased profits for pretty much everybody in the product supply and selling chain. But the impact on your business will depend at least in part on the steps you take now.

5-18-2019 UPDATE. In China’s currency is sending a warning signal about the trade war, CNBC.com writes that the RMB has lost 2.7% of its value as against the dollar, just since President Trump’s May 5 tariff tweet! Are you making your China product supply contracts dollar or Euro denominated?

Who Pays the Tariffs on China Imports? President Trump vs. CNN and What YOU Can do NOW to Reduce Your China Prices syndicated from https://immigrationattorneyto.wordpress.com/

[adambstingus]

6 Real Crime Waves From History That Were Hilariously Insane

Thanks to the news, it’s easy to feel that right now is the most dangerous time to be alive. However, the truth is that the world in general keeps getting safer. You see, not only was the past lousy with criminal terrors, but ye crime waves of olde were also bit more … eccentric. Case in point …

6

A Bootleggers’ Turf War Included Tank Battles And Bomber Planes In 1920s Illinois

Illinois was both a great and terrible place to be a beer fan during Prohibition. Sure, there was no real shortage of booze, but there was a decent chance you’d be shot while drinking it. But while we all know about the glamorous gangland violence of Al Capone’s Chicago, a wholly different criminal empire was tearing it up in the southern part of the state at that time: the hillbilly mafia. And when they got into fights, it wasn’t with blunderbusses and cussin’, but with homemade tanks and aerial bombs.

During Prohibition, the booze king of Southern Illinois was a bootlegging antihero named Charlie Birger. He was loved because he drove the KKK out of the area, omitting that he did so mostly because they kept trying to steal his liquor. Soon after, he joined forces with the Shelton brothers, who agreed to take a cut of the profits from Birger’s speakeasies in exchange for providing him with only the most primo hooch directly from Florida. And if Floridians use it to blot out their reality, you know that’s some powerful hooch.

The partnership quickly dissolved, however, and the two sides went to war. Like, actual war. The Sheltons’ retribution involved attacking Birger with an armored truck they’d made themselves which rolled through the streets equipped with “an assembly of weapons” — i.e. a freaking tank.

As if that wasn’t enough, the brothers then performed perhaps the first aerial bombing on U.S. soil ever when a plane they hired dropped a few bottles of nitroglycerin wrapped in dynamite over one of Birger’s hideouts. You might be okay with dozens of people dying on the street, and you might be okay with criminals blasting each other with Tommy Guns, but when your criminal element is better-armed than the Army Reserve, it’s time to move.

5

19th-Century Sexual Harassers Were So Bad That Women Would Stab Them

While it’s oddly comforting to know that street harassment is not a modern problem, we should all long for a return of the Edwardian era, and not only because their catcalls involved complimenting a lady’s ankles and expressing a strong desire to experience the sublime sight of her ravishing bosom. At least in our great-great-grandmothers’ day, harassment had to be done face-to-face, which gave them a lot more options regarding what to do with said faces.

By the end of the 19th century, it became commonplace to fend off unwanted advances by plucking one’s hatpin out of one’s fashionably enormous hats and stabbing the fucker. These were no puny little thumbtacks, either — they could be well over a foot long and do fatal damage.

San Francisco Sunday Call Cutting-edge fashion.

One woman even forced robbers from a moving train armed with nothing but her hatpin, while 100 factory workers all wielding theirs fought off police who had come to make one of them as a political prisoner. You simply don’t see that kind of sisterhood anymore. Two women in Chicago, upon the former’s discovery of her husband’s infidelity with the latter, “drew hatpins and circled each other, duel-style, until policemen broke it up.” Cops just don’t get called to bust up hatpin phalanxes anymore these days.

And while today there’d be badly kempt rioting in the streets if dudes got stabbed every time they “accidentally” brushed a woman’s derriere on the sidewalk, 19th-century society still had a strict “gentleman or GTFO” attitude. Reporters were only too happy to dub someone a harasser, or “masher.” Even asking “insulting questions” was all it took to find yourself cast as the mustache-twirling villain. It was such an accepted part of society that it became a trope in the fiction of the era, and newspapers printed tutorials on how to get the most out of your deadly accessory, mostly by encouraging the lady to go straight for the balls. The clothes might make the man, but a hatpin can reverse that process in a pinch.

Brooklyn Museum Repeat: One foot long. Right through the balls.

Unfortunately, errant hatpins had a nasty habit of stabbing people by accident, too. At least, that was the purported reasoning behind laws banning or regulating hatpins — which, coincidentally, women weren’t allowed to vote against. Those laws are presumably defunct now, so if any fashion industry moguls happen to be reading, please bring back ridiculously huge hats and their pins. Plenty of people need reminding of that particular fashion tip.

4

New York Had a Gang Of Child Criminals Run By A Kindly Matron

When Fredericka Mandelbaum emigrated from Prussia to New York City in the mid-19th century, all she wanted was for her husband and herself to eke out a modest living to feed their children. She didn’t count on becoming the country’s first female crime boss.

Starting out as a snazzy street peddler, Mandelbaum discovered there was a fortune to be made befriending the countless Dickensian pickpockets in the city and buying their stolen wares. “Marm” Mandelbaum then used her motherly charms to recruit these baby criminals as her own private ragamuffin army.

Valerian Gribayedoff To supplement her regular muffin army.

Mother Mandelbaum used her stolen-goods-for-candy-and-affection racket to move up in the criminal world, leasing a store as a front from where she ran her operations, which ranged from financing bank robberies to moving stolen livestock. As a devotee of continuing education, she used the back as a classroom to teach her young delinquents how to become better at crime, a sort of finishing school for repeat offenders. She particularly exalted her female students, whom she was proudly saving from “wasting their lives being housekeepers” — a weird glass ceiling to break. With her sharp eye for business and nurturing of young talent, Mandelbaum soon had enough resources to buy the most important thing for a criminal: friends in high places. She had everyone from the local cab drivers to the police to the city’s highest-powered defense attorneys in her pocket.

In the end, it took a private detective agency hired by the district attorney to bring her down, as no local cop dared to raise a hand against Mother. But before the law could close in, Mandelbaum simply packed up and retired to Canada, making everyone to feel bad for never visiting. She lived there quietly under an assumed identity until her supposed death in 1894. Rumor had it that her coffin, transported back to New York City, was filled with stones, and she had in truth returned in the flesh under the name Madame Fuchs, indicating how few of them she gave. In any case, at her funeral, many mourners reported having been pickpocketed. It’s what she would have wanted.

3

Bandits Used To Steal Wigs All The Time

These days, a secondhand wig is worth about as much as the cheap bald bastard who bought it. But in the days of dandies, having a fancy wig was both necessary and expensive. That meant wigs, which cost about as much as the average worker made in a year, were right alongside jewels and cash on every highwayman’s wish list.

Wigmaking was a process that took “six men six days working from sunup to sundown” and a complicated pre-UPS importing system. That’s a lot of money for something that looks like a Bond villain’s pet died on your head. In fact, getting your hands on a bigwig’s big wig was such a score that it made other types of robbery not worth the risk. Instead of slyly trying to cut a purse or pick a pocket, all a would-be bandit had to do was cut a hole or two in the back of a carriage, grab a few fistfuls of powdered perfection, and take off before their now-unsightly owners had any idea what hit them. Boom, that there’s a year’s worth of absinthe.

And with way less needless crotch contact than pickpocketing.

One story tells of a thief so bold as to simply replace his mark’s wig with his own cheap rug when he wasn’t looking. The mark, not feeling the difference, simply walked away, not realizing he had lost a fortune in doll hairs. Unfortunately, the bandits too fell victim to fashion. Wigs eventually stopped being stylish, thereby killing one the criminal underworld’s sillier sources of revenue.

2

17th-Century Dairy Farmers Used To Dye Their Cheese To Jack Up The Price

Food coloring is an important staple in today’s food, especially when it contains little to no actual food. That’s why we’d be more upset at finding out that Cheetos do in fact contain cheese. But back in the day, fake cheese was a huge scandal.

Before we needed an advanced chemistry degree to read food labels, a food’s color was often a sign of its quality. For cheese, a bright orange color signified that it came from quality breeds of cows that eat certain types of grass, which affected the taste greatly. However, in the 17th century, English farmers had figured out that they could get more bang for their cheese by separating the cream first and using it for other products. But it was the cream that had all that orangey goodness, and while their now-white cheese was of the same quality, there’s such a thing as branding. Paint those McDonald’s golden arches green, and it’s game over, baby. Game over.

So the cheese makers came up with a way to disguise their stupid white skim cheese as the full-fat good stuff. They started using natural dyes from a number of plants, including saffron, marigolds, and carrots, and the monocled masses were none the wiser. Later, they started using an extract called annatto, which is what Kraft now uses instead of artificial coloring, because you can even make fraud more lucrative by making it “vintage.” In a matter of decades, the ruse had become an industry standard, being used by cheesemongers all across the UK and the U.S. (except New England, as they prefer to dine on their own smugness). However, the practice of coloring cheese eventually backfired, as it became so common that orange cheese came to be regarded as low-quality instead, begetting an industry of “artificial cheese products” and giving previously exalted cows low self-esteem.

1

A Gang Of One-Legged Men Terrorized Australia

Everything in Australia is deadlier than it should be, and that extends to their old-fashioned gangs. Around the turn of the last century, the scourge roaming (or rather, hobbling around) the streets of Melbourne was a gang called Crutchie Push, and it consisted almost entirely of one-legged men.

They might not have been fast, but death was certain if you were caught by the Crutchie Push (“push” being so hilariously appropriate Australian slang for “gang”). It was a requirement to be one limb short of a set to join the gang, meaning most of them went into battle already on crutches — except for one berserker who still had both legs and ran into fights swinging a brick stuffed inside his sweater sleeve like a low-rent Mr. Fantastic. From there, everyone else (hopefully in choreographed synchronicity) balanced on one leg and used their crutches as weapons. Their signature move was to jab an opponent in the stomach with the tip of the crutch, then swing it around and beat him with it while he was doubled over. It was a surprisingly effective way to force compliance from shop owners and random people of whom they demanded money, food, and booze. Still more reliable than Social Security.

But for a bunch of people who were physically unable to run, the Crutchie Push were bizarrely hard to catch. You’d think you could just lead them to a staircase and be done with it, but when an officer became involved in a brawl with leader Valentine Keating, the one-legged man actually outran the officer before he could be arrested. That’s either Olympic-level crutch skills or a hilariously unfit cop. Eventually, the police became so frustrated with the gang that they assembled a task force made up by the ten most violent police officers in Australia. These “Terrible Ten” were sent out to track the Crutchie Push down and beat them with hoses, because there is apparently a very fine line between legitimate Australian history and the fever dream of a wealthy conservative business owner looking to build a casino atop an Army veterans clinic.

Keating was eventually imprisoned for beating a cop to death with his crutches, after which he … um, went on to a nice, quiet life as a barkeep until his death from tuberculosis. In all of his days tending bar, he never called the police to break up a fight. Why use them as a crutch if you can beat a man to death with your own?

You don’t have to steal to get this wig for your dog.

Also check out 8 Unsolved Crimes That Were Clearly Committed By Satan and 4 Terrifying Historical Crimes No One Can Explain.

Subscribe to our YouTube channel, and check out Why Thomas Edison Was History’s Biggest Dick, and watch other videos you won’t see on the site!

Follow our new Pictofacts Facebook page, and we’ll follow you everywhere.

Get intimate with our new podcast Cracked Gets Personal. Subscribe for funny, fascinating episodes like Rape, Pee Funnels and The Dolphin: Female Soldiers Speak Up and Inside The Secret Epidemic Of Cops Shooting Dogs, available wherever you get your podcasts.

from All Of Beer http://allofbeer.com/6-real-crime-waves-from-history-that-were-hilariously-insane/ from All of Beer https://allofbeercom.tumblr.com/post/183703998612

[allofbeercom]

6 Real Crime Waves From History That Were Hilariously Insane

Thanks to the news, it’s easy to feel that right now is the most dangerous time to be alive. However, the truth is that the world in general keeps getting safer. You see, not only was the past lousy with criminal terrors, but ye crime waves of olde were also bit more … eccentric. Case in point …

6

A Bootleggers’ Turf War Included Tank Battles And Bomber Planes In 1920s Illinois

Illinois was both a great and terrible place to be a beer fan during Prohibition. Sure, there was no real shortage of booze, but there was a decent chance you’d be shot while drinking it. But while we all know about the glamorous gangland violence of Al Capone’s Chicago, a wholly different criminal empire was tearing it up in the southern part of the state at that time: the hillbilly mafia. And when they got into fights, it wasn’t with blunderbusses and cussin’, but with homemade tanks and aerial bombs.

During Prohibition, the booze king of Southern Illinois was a bootlegging antihero named Charlie Birger. He was loved because he drove the KKK out of the area, omitting that he did so mostly because they kept trying to steal his liquor. Soon after, he joined forces with the Shelton brothers, who agreed to take a cut of the profits from Birger’s speakeasies in exchange for providing him with only the most primo hooch directly from Florida. And if Floridians use it to blot out their reality, you know that’s some powerful hooch.

The partnership quickly dissolved, however, and the two sides went to war. Like, actual war. The Sheltons’ retribution involved attacking Birger with an armored truck they’d made themselves which rolled through the streets equipped with “an assembly of weapons” — i.e. a freaking tank.

As if that wasn’t enough, the brothers then performed perhaps the first aerial bombing on U.S. soil ever when a plane they hired dropped a few bottles of nitroglycerin wrapped in dynamite over one of Birger’s hideouts. You might be okay with dozens of people dying on the street, and you might be okay with criminals blasting each other with Tommy Guns, but when your criminal element is better-armed than the Army Reserve, it’s time to move.

5

19th-Century Sexual Harassers Were So Bad That Women Would Stab Them

While it’s oddly comforting to know that street harassment is not a modern problem, we should all long for a return of the Edwardian era, and not only because their catcalls involved complimenting a lady’s ankles and expressing a strong desire to experience the sublime sight of her ravishing bosom. At least in our great-great-grandmothers’ day, harassment had to be done face-to-face, which gave them a lot more options regarding what to do with said faces.

By the end of the 19th century, it became commonplace to fend off unwanted advances by plucking one’s hatpin out of one’s fashionably enormous hats and stabbing the fucker. These were no puny little thumbtacks, either — they could be well over a foot long and do fatal damage.

San Francisco Sunday Call Cutting-edge fashion.

One woman even forced robbers from a moving train armed with nothing but her hatpin, while 100 factory workers all wielding theirs fought off police who had come to make one of them as a political prisoner. You simply don’t see that kind of sisterhood anymore. Two women in Chicago, upon the former’s discovery of her husband’s infidelity with the latter, “drew hatpins and circled each other, duel-style, until policemen broke it up.” Cops just don’t get called to bust up hatpin phalanxes anymore these days.

And while today there’d be badly kempt rioting in the streets if dudes got stabbed every time they “accidentally” brushed a woman’s derriere on the sidewalk, 19th-century society still had a strict “gentleman or GTFO” attitude. Reporters were only too happy to dub someone a harasser, or “masher.” Even asking “insulting questions” was all it took to find yourself cast as the mustache-twirling villain. It was such an accepted part of society that it became a trope in the fiction of the era, and newspapers printed tutorials on how to get the most out of your deadly accessory, mostly by encouraging the lady to go straight for the balls. The clothes might make the man, but a hatpin can reverse that process in a pinch.

Brooklyn Museum Repeat: One foot long. Right through the balls.

Unfortunately, errant hatpins had a nasty habit of stabbing people by accident, too. At least, that was the purported reasoning behind laws banning or regulating hatpins — which, coincidentally, women weren’t allowed to vote against. Those laws are presumably defunct now, so if any fashion industry moguls happen to be reading, please bring back ridiculously huge hats and their pins. Plenty of people need reminding of that particular fashion tip.

4

New York Had a Gang Of Child Criminals Run By A Kindly Matron

When Fredericka Mandelbaum emigrated from Prussia to New York City in the mid-19th century, all she wanted was for her husband and herself to eke out a modest living to feed their children. She didn’t count on becoming the country’s first female crime boss.

Starting out as a snazzy street peddler, Mandelbaum discovered there was a fortune to be made befriending the countless Dickensian pickpockets in the city and buying their stolen wares. “Marm” Mandelbaum then used her motherly charms to recruit these baby criminals as her own private ragamuffin army.

Valerian Gribayedoff To supplement her regular muffin army.

Mother Mandelbaum used her stolen-goods-for-candy-and-affection racket to move up in the criminal world, leasing a store as a front from where she ran her operations, which ranged from financing bank robberies to moving stolen livestock. As a devotee of continuing education, she used the back as a classroom to teach her young delinquents how to become better at crime, a sort of finishing school for repeat offenders. She particularly exalted her female students, whom she was proudly saving from “wasting their lives being housekeepers” — a weird glass ceiling to break. With her sharp eye for business and nurturing of young talent, Mandelbaum soon had enough resources to buy the most important thing for a criminal: friends in high places. She had everyone from the local cab drivers to the police to the city’s highest-powered defense attorneys in her pocket.

In the end, it took a private detective agency hired by the district attorney to bring her down, as no local cop dared to raise a hand against Mother. But before the law could close in, Mandelbaum simply packed up and retired to Canada, making everyone to feel bad for never visiting. She lived there quietly under an assumed identity until her supposed death in 1894. Rumor had it that her coffin, transported back to New York City, was filled with stones, and she had in truth returned in the flesh under the name Madame Fuchs, indicating how few of them she gave. In any case, at her funeral, many mourners reported having been pickpocketed. It’s what she would have wanted.

3

Bandits Used To Steal Wigs All The Time

These days, a secondhand wig is worth about as much as the cheap bald bastard who bought it. But in the days of dandies, having a fancy wig was both necessary and expensive. That meant wigs, which cost about as much as the average worker made in a year, were right alongside jewels and cash on every highwayman’s wish list.

Wigmaking was a process that took “six men six days working from sunup to sundown” and a complicated pre-UPS importing system. That’s a lot of money for something that looks like a Bond villain’s pet died on your head. In fact, getting your hands on a bigwig’s big wig was such a score that it made other types of robbery not worth the risk. Instead of slyly trying to cut a purse or pick a pocket, all a would-be bandit had to do was cut a hole or two in the back of a carriage, grab a few fistfuls of powdered perfection, and take off before their now-unsightly owners had any idea what hit them. Boom, that there’s a year’s worth of absinthe.

And with way less needless crotch contact than pickpocketing.

One story tells of a thief so bold as to simply replace his mark’s wig with his own cheap rug when he wasn’t looking. The mark, not feeling the difference, simply walked away, not realizing he had lost a fortune in doll hairs. Unfortunately, the bandits too fell victim to fashion. Wigs eventually stopped being stylish, thereby killing one the criminal underworld’s sillier sources of revenue.

2

17th-Century Dairy Farmers Used To Dye Their Cheese To Jack Up The Price

Food coloring is an important staple in today’s food, especially when it contains little to no actual food. That’s why we’d be more upset at finding out that Cheetos do in fact contain cheese. But back in the day, fake cheese was a huge scandal.

Before we needed an advanced chemistry degree to read food labels, a food’s color was often a sign of its quality. For cheese, a bright orange color signified that it came from quality breeds of cows that eat certain types of grass, which affected the taste greatly. However, in the 17th century, English farmers had figured out that they could get more bang for their cheese by separating the cream first and using it for other products. But it was the cream that had all that orangey goodness, and while their now-white cheese was of the same quality, there’s such a thing as branding. Paint those McDonald’s golden arches green, and it’s game over, baby. Game over.

So the cheese makers came up with a way to disguise their stupid white skim cheese as the full-fat good stuff. They started using natural dyes from a number of plants, including saffron, marigolds, and carrots, and the monocled masses were none the wiser. Later, they started using an extract called annatto, which is what Kraft now uses instead of artificial coloring, because you can even make fraud more lucrative by making it “vintage.” In a matter of decades, the ruse had become an industry standard, being used by cheesemongers all across the UK and the U.S. (except New England, as they prefer to dine on their own smugness). However, the practice of coloring cheese eventually backfired, as it became so common that orange cheese came to be regarded as low-quality instead, begetting an industry of “artificial cheese products” and giving previously exalted cows low self-esteem.

1

A Gang Of One-Legged Men Terrorized Australia

Everything in Australia is deadlier than it should be, and that extends to their old-fashioned gangs. Around the turn of the last century, the scourge roaming (or rather, hobbling around) the streets of Melbourne was a gang called Crutchie Push, and it consisted almost entirely of one-legged men.

They might not have been fast, but death was certain if you were caught by the Crutchie Push (“push” being so hilariously appropriate Australian slang for “gang”). It was a requirement to be one limb short of a set to join the gang, meaning most of them went into battle already on crutches — except for one berserker who still had both legs and ran into fights swinging a brick stuffed inside his sweater sleeve like a low-rent Mr. Fantastic. From there, everyone else (hopefully in choreographed synchronicity) balanced on one leg and used their crutches as weapons. Their signature move was to jab an opponent in the stomach with the tip of the crutch, then swing it around and beat him with it while he was doubled over. It was a surprisingly effective way to force compliance from shop owners and random people of whom they demanded money, food, and booze. Still more reliable than Social Security.

But for a bunch of people who were physically unable to run, the Crutchie Push were bizarrely hard to catch. You’d think you could just lead them to a staircase and be done with it, but when an officer became involved in a brawl with leader Valentine Keating, the one-legged man actually outran the officer before he could be arrested. That’s either Olympic-level crutch skills or a hilariously unfit cop. Eventually, the police became so frustrated with the gang that they assembled a task force made up by the ten most violent police officers in Australia. These “Terrible Ten” were sent out to track the Crutchie Push down and beat them with hoses, because there is apparently a very fine line between legitimate Australian history and the fever dream of a wealthy conservative business owner looking to build a casino atop an Army veterans clinic.

Keating was eventually imprisoned for beating a cop to death with his crutches, after which he … um, went on to a nice, quiet life as a barkeep until his death from tuberculosis. In all of his days tending bar, he never called the police to break up a fight. Why use them as a crutch if you can beat a man to death with your own?

You don’t have to steal to get this wig for your dog.

Also check out 8 Unsolved Crimes That Were Clearly Committed By Satan and 4 Terrifying Historical Crimes No One Can Explain.

Subscribe to our YouTube channel, and check out Why Thomas Edison Was History’s Biggest Dick, and watch other videos you won’t see on the site!

Follow our new Pictofacts Facebook page, and we’ll follow you everywhere.

Get intimate with our new podcast Cracked Gets Personal. Subscribe for funny, fascinating episodes like Rape, Pee Funnels and The Dolphin: Female Soldiers Speak Up and Inside The Secret Epidemic Of Cops Shooting Dogs, available wherever you get your podcasts.

from All Of Beer http://allofbeer.com/6-real-crime-waves-from-history-that-were-hilariously-insane/

[awesomeblockchain]

The Victorian era was when brands really took off

Around the time of the first industrial revolution Molly, of Molly's Flour, stopped selling flour direct to the people in her village.

She wanted to sell to more people than would stop by the back of her farm kitchen, so she packaged her flour up, and sent it around the county in tins by train.

And just like that we saw the first industrial trust problem emerge.

Up until that point, everyone in the village knew Molly personally, so they could be confident her flour was good, pure and untainted.

Now it was going Yorkshire-wide, in tins with an engraving of a windmill and sitting on a shelf in a Manchester grocery store. But would the grocers tamper with it and mix it with cheaper substitutes like sawdust and talcum powder? Such actions bedevilled Victorian products and tinctures.

Molly would visit the stores, talk to the storekeepers and check they were good people so she could trust them not to tamper with her flour. After all, it was her name on the tins.

As Molly's brand grew its label became more and more of an asset, and the need to protect it grew stronger.

Roll on 200 years to the year 2013 and a new problem emerged. It's called the multiagency problem and it represents taking trust beyond the industrial level. It looks like this.

The largest U.K. supermarket sells millions of tonnes of burgers and lasagna ready meals every year. This creates a need for cheap minced beef. Meanwhile, the horse racing industry has lots of surplus meat in the form of horses that are bred and don't make racing grade performance. They're filled with antibiotics and steroids and they cost some money to dispose of.

By creating enough layers between different agents who don't know each other very well, it's possible to convert the dead racehorses into prime beef, or at least that's what the labels were saying.

So millions of tonnes of horse meat gets reassigned as millions of tonnes of beef. It's food fraud on an industrial scale.

The problem only comes to light when someone thinks to do some DNA testing and they discover that there's 100% pure horsemeat in the supermarket's lasagne.

Now you might imagine that it would be easier for the supermarket to guarantee against food fraud than Molly two hundred years earlier; after all there are so many more bits of paperwork that would need alteration in the modern story.

There are food standard agencies and European directives. There are certificates and inspectors doing unannounced factory visits. And yet none of these were able to protect the consumer, or other players higher up the chain.

Most of all you might imagine that the supermarket in question, Tesco, wouldn't want to risk its brand for meat of dubious provenance. After all, the brand was worth billions globally.

And yet that wasn't the case. Nor was it the case for almost every other supermarket chain caught up in the scandal.

While it's true that Tesco did lose lb300 million as a result of the scandal, this represented a relatively small hit compared to the total brand value.

A New Era Of Brandless Trust

It's not difficult to see why we're heading towards brandless trust.

If you think about a supply chain that's obsessed with finding a more efficient way of doing things, you see why we have a system that's always adding more agencies in between the beginning and the end points. And why there's a decreasing visibility of what's really going on.

Where Molly was a single agency brand, her modern counterparts would be adding agencies everywhere to make things work cheaper, better and faster.

If you can turn one link of the chain into two sub-links and bring an economy in here or there, you've 'improved' the system.

Sure, you've opened it up to a greater risk of fraud, but that will be someone else's problem, higher up the chain.

What we're witnessing isn't an accident of occasional fraud, it's an unavoidable consequence of our desire for cheaper, better and faster.

Supermarket lasagne showed how long value chains could hide an ugly truth.(Staff Photo by Ariana van den Akker/Portland Press Herald via Getty Images)

The consumer realised that Tesco wasn't alone. Aldi, Findus, Sainsbury's, Waitrose were all using the same supplier implicated in the scandal. But if they hadn't been using that supplier, the other suppliers were implicated too. It was an industry-wide problem, so why pick on Tesco as the bad guys?

Not everyone was caught with horse meat on their shelves but none of them could really say they had dodged the scandal.

Maximum Efficiency, Minimum Visibility

It's as though our modern ethos and logistics have brought us to a point of zero visibility.

But beyond the burger, lasagne and minced beef, the same forces are at work.

Last week it was discovered that there were 66 million bottles of wine fraudulently based on Rhone wine with 1.3 million bottles claiming to be the famous Chateau Neuf du Pape label. The lb70 million scam has, not surprisingly, resulted in arrests.

What about when it comes to building products? There's plenty of supply chain fraud issues, only more dangerous. For instance, concrete buildings that fall down when the steel reinforcement bars get concrete cancer, because someone switched the aggregate for a cheaper variety to make it.

But just as this problem reaches its high point, just as optimization has created near zero visibility in every chain we buy from, we have a technological solution emerging which is going to move the story on. And yes, it's all about the blockchain.

Beyond DNA

What if you can't check the DNA of some product? After all, a concrete slab doesn't have DNA we can look at, so how could you check its credentials? And besides, DNA testing is expensive so you don't always want to make it part of the process.

The idea behind blockchain is that you create a digital record that's inseparably connected to the product you've got going through the chain.

That digital record is tied to the real world product and because it uses cryptography, it's inviolable. Also known as DLT, or distributed ledger technology, it's some of the technology that helps Bitcoin work.

Perhaps the easiest way to think about it is like a digital version of the packing notes that accompanies a consignment of goods, only more reliable.

Those packing notes used to be printed on paper, and those could be modified in a nefarious way. Someone today can still turn up at a warehouse with a fake set of documentation, a large truck and steal a ton of product. When the real truck turns up they have nothing to load up.

Even the computer records that generate the printed documents can be modified, which is how many forms of supply chain frauds happen today.

But with blockchain records, you can't change anything without it showing up as changed or corrupted, and that is extremely useful. The sheer cryptographic strength of each record means that any attempt to change a record will result in a flag coming up as a hacking attempt.

So much for the packing notes being in order, but how do you link them to that particular consignment? What stops someone switching the produce with something else under the same packing note?

What can you do for deliveries of say, olive oil? How do you link a consignment of virgin pressed olive oil to packing documents declaring it to be from Italy and protect it from getting switched with a cheaper consignment from Greece, pretending to be from Italy?

This is a problem that's been preoccupying Emma Weston at AgriDigital and the solution is elegant, and somewhat internet of things.

In the AgriDigital conception of a blockchain record, the lorry that has the correct Italian olive oil consignment has a GPS tracker which logs its journey and the vehicle identity.

As the oil is tipping out into the next stage, the lorry uploads the journey it took to get to the warehouse or depot.

"If someone were trying to switch it with the lorry that came from Greece, a different route would be uploaded into the system, and that generates a flag on the system. Because part of the smart contract requires the lorry to have come from Italy and not Greece according to its GPS tracker, a fault in the provenance would automatically stop the smart contract completing."

"Of course you have to allow for lorries taking a different route sometimes, because of a motorway closure, but that requires some human intervention, and we're authenticating the human part of the equation too," says Weston.

AgriDigital sees a time when there is zero fraud in any agricultural supply chain. And you don't need a brand to guarantee the quality, only a set of processes or places or that an internet of things device will vouch for. The system is testing at the moment.

In effect rather than Molly going around the country to check what's going on, the blockchain way is to use the internet enabled devices to do the same thing, all the time writing their learnings on an immutable ledger.

For anyone who wants to know that their oil is Italian and their lasagne isn't made with horse meat, the blockchain era can't come soon enough.

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[glenmenlow]

Ripple Effect: 5 Questions With Co-Founder Adam Lowry

Adam Lowry is trying to do for plant-based milks what he already helped do for sustainabe household cleaning products: bring them into the mainstream and consumers’ refrigerators.

As the co-founder and co-CEO of Ripple Foods, whose first product is pea milk (more on that below), Lowry is well on his way. In addition to raising $44 million in funding from Google and Silicon Valley venture capitalists, Ripple’s plant-based milk has generated more than $20 million in revenue since launching in early 2016.

A mainstay in the refrigerated grocery section at Target stores, the next stage is happening now—expanding its product line beyond milk while expanding distribution and brand awareness.

Lowry (right) co-founded Method Home cleaning products, which was generating $100 million in annual sales by 2012, when it was sold to Belgian CPG company Ecover. In addition to a design-led brand that made replacement pouches for its curvy bottles the norm, Method built a factory on Chicago’s South Side to create jobs while adhering to exemplary environmental standards.

Those lessons are with him today as he helps build Ripple. With its clean taste and ample protein—8 grams per serving, the same as dairy milk and comparable to soy milk while higher than almond milk—Ripple is touting a unique value proposition and product offering versus non-dairy milks and over competitive brands. Hence its bold tagline: “Dairy free. As it should be.”

For a start, sustainability is at the heart of the brand. Each 48-ounce bottle of Ripple saves 3.5 pounds of carbon dioxide emissions and 925 gallons of water versus dairy milk, the company says. Getting the same amount of protein from almond milk would require 66 billion additional gallons of agricultural water.

“Plant-based milks are a $2 billion market that’s forecast to go to $4 billion in a short period of time,” Lowry, a climate scientist turned entrepreneur, told brandchannel. “There’s a profound shift going on for a variety of reasons, ranging from health desires to sustainability benefits.”

As for its core ingredient, Ripple protein comes from yellow peas, the same raw material that goes into Hampton Creek’s faux mayonnaise, Just Mayo. Ripple has taken the extra step of concocting a patent-pending process that strips out the flavor of plant material and leaves almost pure protein, so it doesn’t taste like peas. This gives the product the advantage of a neutral taste, unlike soy or almond milks.

Introducing NEW Ripple Greek Yogurt Alternative! With 12g of pure plant-based protein per serving, now you can enjoy all the benefits of greek yogurt without the dairy. Ripple Yogurt is available in five flavors: Original, Vanilla, Strawberry, Blueberry, and Maple. Find it on shelf now at Kroger stores, and many more regional grocers coming soon. Learn more through our link in profile!

A post shared by Ripplefoods (@ripplefoods) on Dec 1, 2017 at 3:05pm PST

//platform.instagram.com/en_US/embeds.js

Ripple is working on making more products from its proprietary protein, which it calls Ripptein, including a Greek yogurt alternative that it launched on December 1st in beta. It’s taking customers’ feedback (and criticisms) on-board, announcing on December 12th on Facebook that it’s still refining the product and looking to make the non-dairy yogurt creamier and more pleasing.

It’s also looking beyond peas for other sources of plant protein which could be derived from the same process and even cost to produce while maintaining a low-impact environmental footprint.

For more insights from the former Method man who’s looking to make a Ripple with nutritional and grocery buying habits, we spoke with Lowry about his second major CPG startup.

Adam, what do you think will be the tipping point for making Ripple and other plant-based milks mainstream? 

The way I think is, this is our reason for being. Before Ripple came along, dairy alternatives were really terrible alternatives to dairy. Almond milk is thin and watery and chalky. Same with other milks, and 90% of those that are sold have one-eighth the protein of milk—or less—so they’re missing the enjoyment and the nutritional benefits of milk.

As more mainstream consumers want to drink plant-based, that  means more people who don’t have to drink plant-based. What will make it go mainstream is to have a dairy alternative that can stand up to dairy milk in terms of taste and nutrition, and that’s what we’re trying to create. Ripple’s got the same protein level as milk and is creamy and delicious.

Is “pea milk” a hard sell, especially as people might assume it tastes like peas?

Yes, you can say “pea milk” and people kind of chuckle. But at the end of the day, it hasn’t been a huge barrier for us. We’re the first people to make a milk from peas. You want to be 100% transparent about what the milk is made from because that’s the first thing people want to know.

The brand architecture we use, what we really talk about, is Ripptein, and being the purest plant protein on earth. What that’s meant to do is help people understand that what makes Ripple unique is Ripptein, and that comes from peas, but it’s not peas themselves that make Ripple unique. In the future, that might come from something else.

How are you marketing Ripple? Is it all digital/social?

A lot of our marketing, nearly all of it, is digital in nature. That’s a function of who we’re talking to. The average age of a Ripple consumer is 33, much younger than the average age of other brands and consumers in the space. These are people who consume digital media primarily. We are doing a little bit of traditional media on top of that—a broad awareness play, region by region—as we build out our distribution.

And much like my previous business, Method, what we really rely on is storytelling. The media we earn (is) by having a really distinctive product proposition and an interesting brand where there aren’t really a lot of interesting brands and products. It’s supported by our own social media efforts, but we don’t have as many followers as Ellen [DeGeneres] yet. But we’re building that.

You’ve got an unusual logo—with fading letters—and brand name. What can you share about Ripple’s identity?

It’s about the little things we do each day and those adding up to major acts—about ripples, if you will. If you think about other brands in this space, it’s all about the ingredients they came from. The second-biggest brand in the space is Almond Breeze, and it’s clearly about almonds.

The biggest brand is Silk, a contraction of “soy” and “milk.” Ingredients go in and out of fashion, and almond nuts are a terrible thing to make milk out of—it doesn’t have any protein, isn’t any good, and uses insane amounts of water. Cashew milk is even worse. Coconut milk is terrible from that respect; it has no protein at all.

You don’t want to build a brand around a single ingredient because that’s not a very distinctive or enduring brand proposition. We want Ripple to be a brand across the whole non-dairy space that is one way that you create a little ripple effect in your life.

As for the branding, we wanted to create a logo treatment that’s visually interesting. Brand logo treatments have gotten too similar-looking: modern, lower-case approachable things. The Method logo treatment is a lot like that. But we really wanted something more distinctive. So the big innovation there was to create our own font that we thought not only was distinctive but also a visual reminder of what Ripple the word and brand represent, with the swirliness of the font.

Ripple is built on the truth that the smallest actions can have far reaching impacts. We wrote a letter to you, our fans, to show you how impactful you have been in bringing our mission to life. You have created a wave of change simply by choosing Ripple over something else. Click the link in our profile to see why. #RippleEffect

A post shared by Ripplefoods (@ripplefoods) on Oct 12, 2017 at 11:21am PDT

//platform.instagram.com/en_US/embeds.js

How does sustainability inspire and define what you call the Ripple Effect?

I used to be a climate scientist and I went straight out of college wanting to dedicate my career to environmental issues. I worked on the Kyoto Protocol of 1997, for instance. My frustrations there led me to create my first business, Method. The frustrations were feeling like I was preaching to the converted in my science job. The science was really clear but wasn’t leading to policy change, and still isn’t.

Second, realizing as a green consumer at the time, I was always frustrated because all the products frankly sucked. There were sacrifices: they were brown and ugly and too expensive and you had to go to a different store to buy them and they didn’t work.

That was the original idea behind Method: using business to create social and environmental good. We kind of turned the whole green product model on its head. We created a better product and put it in mainstream stores. That’s exactly what we’re doing with Ripple—and it’s also the most sustainable.

Get more insights in our Q&A series.

Subscribe to our free newsletter for more.

The post Ripple Effect: 5 Questions With Co-Founder Adam Lowry appeared first on brandchannel:.

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[joejstrickl]

Ripple Effect: 5 Questions With Co-Founder Adam Lowry

Adam Lowry is trying to do for plant-based milks what he already helped do for sustainabe household cleaning products: bring them into the mainstream and consumers’ refrigerators.

As the co-founder and co-CEO of Ripple Foods, whose first product is pea milk (more on that below), Lowry is well on his way. In addition to raising $44 million in funding from Google and Silicon Valley venture capitalists, Ripple’s plant-based milk has generated more than $20 million in revenue since launching in early 2016.

A mainstay in the refrigerated grocery section at Target stores, the next stage is happening now—expanding its product line beyond milk while expanding distribution and brand awareness.

Lowry (right) co-founded Method Home cleaning products, which was generating $100 million in annual sales by 2012, when it was sold to Belgian CPG company Ecover. In addition to a design-led brand that made replacement pouches for its curvy bottles the norm, Method built a factory on Chicago’s South Side to create jobs while adhering to exemplary environmental standards.

Those lessons are with him today as he helps build Ripple. With its clean taste and ample protein—8 grams per serving, the same as dairy milk and comparable to soy milk while higher than almond milk—Ripple is touting a unique value proposition and product offering versus non-dairy milks and over competitive brands. Hence its bold tagline: “Dairy free. As it should be.”

For a start, sustainability is at the heart of the brand. Each 48-ounce bottle of Ripple saves 3.5 pounds of carbon dioxide emissions and 925 gallons of water versus dairy milk, the company says. Getting the same amount of protein from almond milk would require 66 billion additional gallons of agricultural water.

“Plant-based milks are a $2 billion market that’s forecast to go to $4 billion in a short period of time,” Lowry, a climate scientist turned entrepreneur, told brandchannel. “There’s a profound shift going on for a variety of reasons, ranging from health desires to sustainability benefits.”

As for its core ingredient, Ripple protein comes from yellow peas, the same raw material that goes into Hampton Creek’s faux mayonnaise, Just Mayo. Ripple has taken the extra step of concocting a patent-pending process that strips out the flavor of plant material and leaves almost pure protein, so it doesn’t taste like peas. This gives the product the advantage of a neutral taste, unlike soy or almond milks.

Introducing NEW Ripple Greek Yogurt Alternative! With 12g of pure plant-based protein per serving, now you can enjoy all the benefits of greek yogurt without the dairy. Ripple Yogurt is available in five flavors: Original, Vanilla, Strawberry, Blueberry, and Maple. Find it on shelf now at Kroger stores, and many more regional grocers coming soon. Learn more through our link in profile!

A post shared by Ripplefoods (@ripplefoods) on Dec 1, 2017 at 3:05pm PST

Ripple is working on making more products from its proprietary protein, which it calls Ripptein, including a Greek yogurt alternative that it launched on December 1st in beta. It’s taking customers’ feedback (and criticisms) on-board, announcing on December 12th on Facebook that it’s still refining the product and looking to make the non-dairy yogurt creamier and more pleasing.

It’s also looking beyond peas for other sources of plant protein which could be derived from the same process and even cost to produce while maintaining a low-impact environmental footprint.

For more insights from the former Method man who’s looking to make a Ripple with nutritional and grocery buying habits, we spoke with Lowry about his second major CPG startup.

Adam, what do you think will be the tipping point for making Ripple and other plant-based milks mainstream? 

The way I think is, this is our reason for being. Before Ripple came along, dairy alternatives were really terrible alternatives to dairy. Almond milk is thin and watery and chalky. Same with other milks, and 90% of those that are sold have one-eighth the protein of milk—or less—so they’re missing the enjoyment and the nutritional benefits of milk.

As more mainstream consumers want to drink plant-based, that  means more people who don’t have to drink plant-based. What will make it go mainstream is to have a dairy alternative that can stand up to dairy milk in terms of taste and nutrition, and that’s what we’re trying to create. Ripple’s got the same protein level as milk and is creamy and delicious.

Is “pea milk” a hard sell, especially as people might assume it tastes like peas?

Yes, you can say “pea milk” and people kind of chuckle. But at the end of the day, it hasn’t been a huge barrier for us. We’re the first people to make a milk from peas. You want to be 100% transparent about what the milk is made from because that’s the first thing people want to know.

The brand architecture we use, what we really talk about, is Ripptein, and being the purest plant protein on earth. What that’s meant to do is help people understand that what makes Ripple unique is Ripptein, and that comes from peas, but it’s not peas themselves that make Ripple unique. In the future, that might come from something else.

How are you marketing Ripple? Is it all digital/social?

A lot of our marketing, nearly all of it, is digital in nature. That’s a function of who we’re talking to. The average age of a Ripple consumer is 33, much younger than the average age of other brands and consumers in the space. These are people who consume digital media primarily. We are doing a little bit of traditional media on top of that—a broad awareness play, region by region—as we build out our distribution.

And much like my previous business, Method, what we really rely on is storytelling. The media we earn (is) by having a really distinctive product proposition and an interesting brand where there aren’t really a lot of interesting brands and products. It’s supported by our own social media efforts, but we don’t have as many followers as Ellen [DeGeneres] yet. But we’re building that.

You’ve got an unusual logo—with fading letters—and brand name. What can you share about Ripple’s identity?

It’s about the little things we do each day and those adding up to major acts—about ripples, if you will. If you think about other brands in this space, it’s all about the ingredients they came from. The second-biggest brand in the space is Almond Breeze, and it’s clearly about almonds.

The biggest brand is Silk, a contraction of “soy” and “milk.” Ingredients go in and out of fashion, and almond nuts are a terrible thing to make milk out of—it doesn’t have any protein, isn’t any good, and uses insane amounts of water. Cashew milk is even worse. Coconut milk is terrible from that respect; it has no protein at all.

You don’t want to build a brand around a single ingredient because that’s not a very distinctive or enduring brand proposition. We want Ripple to be a brand across the whole non-dairy space that is one way that you create a little ripple effect in your life.

As for the branding, we wanted to create a logo treatment that’s visually interesting. Brand logo treatments have gotten too similar-looking: modern, lower-case approachable things. The Method logo treatment is a lot like that. But we really wanted something more distinctive. So the big innovation there was to create our own font that we thought not only was distinctive but also a visual reminder of what Ripple the word and brand represent, with the swirliness of the font.

Ripple is built on the truth that the smallest actions can have far reaching impacts. We wrote a letter to you, our fans, to show you how impactful you have been in bringing our mission to life. You have created a wave of change simply by choosing Ripple over something else. Click the link in our profile to see why. #RippleEffect

A post shared by Ripplefoods (@ripplefoods) on Oct 12, 2017 at 11:21am PDT

How does sustainability inspire and define what you call the Ripple Effect?

I used to be a climate scientist and I went straight out of college wanting to dedicate my career to environmental issues. I worked on the Kyoto Protocol of 1997, for instance. My frustrations there led me to create my first business, Method. The frustrations were feeling like I was preaching to the converted in my science job. The science was really clear but wasn’t leading to policy change, and still isn’t.

Second, realizing as a green consumer at the time, I was always frustrated because all the products frankly sucked. There were sacrifices: they were brown and ugly and too expensive and you had to go to a different store to buy them and they didn’t work.

That was the original idea behind Method: using business to create social and environmental good. We kind of turned the whole green product model on its head. We created a better product and put it in mainstream stores. That’s exactly what we’re doing with Ripple—and it’s also the most sustainable.

Get more insights in our Q&A series.

Subscribe to our free newsletter for more.

The post Ripple Effect: 5 Questions With Co-Founder Adam Lowry appeared first on brandchannel:.