A.C. Flory's Blog, page 130
February 24, 2016
Split Pea Tubes – shame on me :(
Okay, I admit it, I love salt. And fat. But normally I can control myself. Not so with these new Split Pea Tubes:
I found them on the supermarket shelf about two weeks ago and thought I’d give them a try – after all, split peas are good for you, right? These are the ingredients shown on the back of the pack:
And this is what a single serve looks like:
That’s also how much I ate…just on the way home from the supermarket. The rest of the pack disappeared by the end of the second day. This many kilojoules in just two days, while I was trying to diet.:
Since then I haven’t dared buy the Split Pea Tubes again because, honestly, they’re the most delicious things I’ve eaten since the corn chip was first introduced to Australian consumers. The reason I’m publishing this blog post is that I hope it will provide the element of shame I’ll need when will-power wears thin.
My advice? Try one packet and then never buy them again. Seriously delicious. :(
Meeks
Filed under: Food glorious food Tagged: #splitpeatubes, fat, food, health, not-for-dieters, processed, salt
February 19, 2016
Quick Update: EATING BULL E-book Is on Sale for $0.99
If you haven’t already read Carrie’s ‘Eating Bull’, now’s your chance! I guarantee you won’t be able to put it down.
Source: Quick Update: EATING BULL E-book Is on Sale for $0.99
Filed under: Uncategorized
February 18, 2016
Indies Unlimited article – #LookInside Part 1
It’s that time again. My latest article is up on Indies Unlimited. It’s a two-part review of the new ‘Look Inside’ feature from Amazon. No, not the one you see at Amazon but the one you get when you install the function on your own blog or website.
Essentially, we now have the ability to provide readers with a nifty looking sample of our work without them having to leave our sites. This is handy in a number of ways, and not just for authors. Amazon says it is providing the function so people, for example doing reviews, can provide a sample of what they are reviewing. Of course, it also means authors can do the same thing.
You can find the complete article here:
Amazon’s New ‘Look Inside’ Feature for Blogs and Websites [Part One]
And next week, Indies Unlimited will be publishing part 2 in which I do a tutorial on how to set up the new ‘Look Inside’ function on WordPress blogs.
cheers
Meeks
p.s. Apologies for the weird layout of the address link. There appear to have been changes to the ‘Text’ option. Paragraph tags are no longer visible and URL links automatically come with an indent…and that huge blank space. I tried putting in the paragraph tags manually -rolls eyes- but it made no difference. I guess this is more of the ‘let’s make things easier’ mindset. Pity they can’t seem to get it right.
Filed under: Uncategorized
February 17, 2016
The Eight Species of Gaymen. A Non-Scientific Study by The Pink Agendist
Okay, I simply couldn’t let this one past without reblogging it. Pinky and I have been friends for a couple of years and he has the sharpest, funniest wit of any man I know, gay or straight. So if you are shy, homophobic or easily shocked, please look away now.
Over to you, Pinky. :D
In my many years out, I’ve been conducting entirely non-scientific (anti-scientific, even) research to identify and inform society of the many species of gaymen they may come into contact with during their lives. My findings conclude we are divided into eight different species:
Ingenugay
Ingenugay (pronounced engine-you-gay) has just come out of the closet wearing pink-tinted sunglasses and a tiara made of daisies. He’s radiant, he’s innocent, he’s In-gen-u-gay. He thinks all the other gays are his friends. Wake-UP!!! All they want is to get you into bed first. You’re fresh meat. They don’t want your flower tiara they just want to de-flower you. Ingenugay is more of a phase than a species. One day he ends up on youtube crying, with his mascara running down his cheeks as he realizes he’s no longer Ingenugay and has to move into one of the other categories.
TipiGay
Tipigay is the…
View original post 969 more words
Filed under: Uncategorized
February 16, 2016
Oops…the wrong Jose!
Just a quick update on the post I wrote about Jose Carerras in Budapest. I maka da boo boo. That was not Jose Carerras, it was Jose Cura, an Argentinian tenor. [My heartfelt thanks to Sasha Palmer for clearing this up!]
Ah well, at least I got the Jose part right. :)
And now, the real Jose singing ‘E Lucevan le Stelle’ from Tosca, again:
And just because I like stumbling on sexy tenors with glorious voices, here’s an added extra – Jonas Kaufmann singing the same aria from Tosca:
Being a huge fan of the Golden Tenor – Placido Domingo – I can’t help loving the Kaufmann version more. His upper register is not quite as effortless but that lower register, it’s rich and warm, like honey straight from the hive.
-cough- And he’s cute too. -cough-
Okay, that’s it. I am going to be late for work!
Later all,
Meeks
Filed under: Music Tagged: E lucevan le stelle, Jonas-Kaufmann, Jose-Carreras, Jose-Cure, Placido-Domingo, Tosca, video
#WordPress Devs….just stop it! This #Reader is 0/5
Okay, now you’ve really messed up my Reader! Where the hell are the blogs I follow?
For those who haven’t yet seen the new WordPress Reader landing page, this is it:
Under ‘Welcome to the Reader’ you will find this:
Recent posts from blogs and sites you follow will appear here.
But they don’t. They don’t appear ANYWHERE. Nor is there a clickable link to take me to wherever my follows have been hidden.
‘Explore Discover’ [shown as 1 on the screenshot] is Freshly Pressed with a new name.
‘Get recommendations…’ is just that, a list of blogs I do not follow that WordPress thinks I should be paying attention to.
In the Navigation pane to the left is an option called ‘My Likes’, but this only takes me to posts I have liked in the past.
Nowhere can I see a way of checking in on the blogs I have CHOSEN to follow for reasons pertinent to me.
How dare WordPress tell me my choices don’t count!
I hope this is a glitch of some sort that will get fixed pronto because this new Reader is so awful I really am tempted to leave WordPress altogether. Only the thought of losing all the material I have created during the last four years is stopping me.
Not happy WordPress. This time you really have gone too far.
A.C Flory
Meeka’s Mind
17/2/2016
Filed under: My soap box Tagged: 0/5, 17, 2016, disaster, February, my-follows, new-Freshly-Pressed, Reader, Wordpress
February 15, 2016
South Australia – arse about on #nuclear
What the…? According to the ABC news tonight, the Nuclear Fuel Cycle Royal Commission of South Australia thinks that nuclear power plants are a bad idea but storing nuclear waste for profit is not.
Essentially, the South Australian state government wants to build a nuclear waste dump. Not for the miniscule amount of nuclear waste we currently produce ourselves, but for the massive amounts produced in other parts of the world.
And what will South Australia get for this? About 1500 jobs and some revenue. Billions are mooted but I would suggest that even trillions would not be enough. Not for a potential threat that will last pretty much forever.
Why forever? Because when the half life of something is in the thousands of years, it is effectively there forever. And our short-sighted politicians want to make this nightmare our problem. Also forever.
Oh but nuclear waste is now safe.
Is it? Is our technology really reliable enough to predict what will happen in 10, 20, 100 years time?
Yes, the Australian landmass is highly stable – in comparison to countries that sit on top of fault lines, but we do still have earthquakes – not often and not very big ones, but the ground does move. Can we guarantee that no earthquake will ever occur under or even just near a waste containment facility?
Indigenous leaders already think the government doesn’t much care so long as nothing happens under Adelaide.
And what of the spectre of war? Australia may not be a likely target for a great big bomb, but what about terrorist activity? If you create a whopping big, nuclear containment area full of super toxic waste, aren’t you just creating a tempting target for someone with an axe to grind?
Then again, maybe it wouldn’t even take a terrorist. Maybe all it would take is a guy with a hangover making an oopsie.
Or how about Climate Change and the geography we already have? Take a look at the video below. It’s of Lake Eyre…which is situated in South Australia. Funny bout that…
We once had a huge inland sea of which Lake Eyre is an ephemeral remnant. Is it really so impossible to image the dry inland becoming wet again thanks to Climate Change? I’m sure the designers of Fukushima never imaged an earthquake would break the plant and allow the sea in, but it did, proof that with nuclear, you can never plan for a bad enough ‘worst case’ scenario.
The truth is, none of us can predict the future. Nevertheless, it isn’t hard to imagine what might happen if something did go wrong. Much of inland Australia sits on top of massive, underground aquifers. If those aquifers become polluted with nuclear waste, the Red Centre could easily become the Dead Centre.
This is such a bad idea, I’m stunned any politician is capable of putting it forward with a straight face.
‘Unhappy Jan’.
Meeks
Filed under: My soap box Tagged: 1000-year-half-life, aquifers, Commission, cycle, dump, fuel, Lake-Eyre, nuclear, Royal, South-Australia, waste
February 14, 2016
Intelligent assistant landscape shows slow growth but huge potential
I don’t use IA – ‘Intelligent Assistants’ – but I have seen a friend struggle with Siri, so I’m not convinced even the Q&A part of IA is quite as advanced as the author of this article would like to think. My own struggles with the mindless ‘assistants’ gatekeeping so many corporate phone numbers probably doesn’t endear me to IA either. Nevertheless, I can see the technology becoming ubiquitous, eventually. At the moment though, it seems to me to be more of a toy than a tool. Does anyone else have more relevant experience with IAs?
Ever since Apple’s Siri heralded the age of intelligent assistants (IAs) four years ago — followed by Microsoft, Google, Microsoft, and Facebook — pundits have complained that intelligent assistant technology isn’t living up to its promise.
Source: Intelligent assistant landscape shows slow growth but huge potential
Filed under: Technology Tagged: IA, Intelligent-Assistants, Internet-of-things, Siri, voice-recognition
February 13, 2016
#SwanDive – by Michael Halaas
I was working on Innerscape and listening to SoundCloud today when a new piece of music caught my attention. That wasn’t this, but it did lead to this:
The track is called Swan Dive and is basically a duet for piano and cello, two of my favourite instruments. The composer and pianist is Michael Halaas, and I think the cellist is Joan Jenreaud, simply because she features on two of his other tracks.
Michael Halaas’ music is very different to that of The Piano Guys, but if you like them I think you might also like him. Halaas’ music is not quite as polished, but it is beautiful and quite original.
I do have another reason for featuring Halaas’ video clip today – musicians are like Indie writers, no matter how good they are, they will never make it unless they become visible…okay, audible. This guy doesn’t seem to do much in the way of marketing, so I thought I’d give him a hand. Yes, yes, I know…the blind leading the blind, but it’s the thought that counts. Right? :)
cheers
Meeks
Filed under: Music Tagged: cello, Joan-Jenreaud, Michael-Halaas, music, original, piano, SoundCloud, The-Piano-Guys
February 10, 2016
The global rankings of gender parity don’t look good for the US
Source: The global rankings of gender parity don’t look good for the US
Just as a p.s. – I wonder what kind of contribution Australia makes to the number in Southeast Asia? How ironic that the US and Australia talk so much about gender equality but don’t walk the walk.
Filed under: Uncategorized
