Also it annoys me that daycare uses one that spritzes every few minutes in the baby room. I get it - they're changing poopy diapers all day long - but it still annoys me, chemical-wise.
I especially find it strange that in air freshener commercials, there's usually a guy sitting in a chair and really irritated that the air freshener smell isn't pungent enough. Thank God they make them with built-in fans now!
Plug-ins outlast the smelly plumbers who will be invading your kitchen for a month, but - wink, wink - we know those smelly men will really be here for two months!
The guy is either irritated or completely mystified by the glorious smell. "How on earth did my wife have time to clean the whole house and bake an apple pie? I only stepped out for a minute! Women!"
3: Since our sense of smell naturally adjusts to ambient odors (unless they are biologically wired as bad, like rotting flesh), it's only to be expected that people who routinely use air fresheners will eventually adapt and need ever stronger smells. I'm sure the air freshener industrial complex is well aware of this and exploits it to the fullest.
If I was setting out to become king of the stupid household products market I'd develop a plug-in air freshener that changed smells every half an hour or so. By rotating through a palette of half a dozen or more smells the customer would be constantly reminded of the efficacy of my product, while the competition's product would seem to lose potency quite quickly despite the fact that it's still pumping the same amount of crap into the air.
By rotating through a palette of half a dozen or more smells
"Apple pie! Toothpaste! Sage! Watermelon! Fresh cut grass! New car smell! How the hell does my wife achieve so much in a three hour period?!"
"What's this apple and cinnamon smell coming from? Must be one of those fancy European candles, Mary."
"No, it's not, Nancy! Don't tell the other girls, but it's from Glade!"
"No fucking way!"
Fucking Nancy. Always knows the best shortcuts to femininity.
I mean Mary. Duh. The smart one, not that whore Nancy.
"Hey, who put rotting flesh in the rotation?"
I promised myself I'd leave my laptop behind today and go elsewhere to get work done. Apparently I'm having trouble getting out the door.
"Hey, who put rotting flesh in the rotation?"
The fresh-cut grass contained a gopher.
Do perfumes and colognes trigger the same scornful response? The commercials are terrible, but commercials for say ready-made kids' meals are also uniformly insulting. Talk to your cleaning implement commercials are also pretty strange, but there's not much to say about most household crap, so any 30-second plot is contrived and relies on assumed stereotypes.
I would vastly prefer an air freshener to like 99% of scented candles, personally. Getting comfortable with mess and stink is one extreme, OCD dusting and home-perfuming is the other. Finding low-expenditure ways to improve a local environment is a pretty basic human response.
Commercials aimed at kids are even stranger-- skittles and fruit-by-the-foot especially.
10: you could create unconscious paranoia and xenophobia by interspersing them with subtly unAmerican smells (cardamom, garam masala, cilantro, bleu d'Auvergne, etc.) "There are foreigners in my house! Somewhere!"
Do perfumes and colognes trigger the same scornful response?
I'm used to them. I categorize them with make-up. Also a lot of people only use them on special occasions. Also they're not pretending to make you cleaner. So, no.
11: Just use Glade Printer Ink and Frustration.
When Jammies gets home, he'll inhale and think "Heebie was so productive on her papers! And yet she commented on Unfogged all day! How does she find the time?!"
Alright. Off to buy Glade Scented Productivity.
12: Heebie's plan is to deliver the actual stuff in piles on the living room floor. Don't step in the Apple Pie!
If you freeze fresh cut grass does it retain its smell? If so there's a hella swipple business possibility in freezing fresh grass in the summer and delivering it to people in the winter. You'd need some sort of fancy defrosting bowl with a foreign sounding name, and some sort of hierarchy of grasses, preferably including something that's not sustainably harvested but smells really good so you get the tension between UMC performance and liberal values. It's not really swipple if there isn't a bit of guilt.
Mineshaft Holdings International LLC should add GrassCo to its portfolio.
some sort of fancy defrosting bowl with a foreign sounding name
El Bongo de la Gravedad?
i get my smells the way any self-respecting dfh does: patchouli incense sticks from the head shop.
i think its a bad sign, in some way, that when i have been walking past the dumpsters in the alley on the way to the park, i have a brief 'hm, thats a nice fish sauce' reaction
and if i had to change diapers, i'd wear a activated carbon gas mask. a little febreeze would not be sufficient.
oh, and those winky commercials for crest white paste i find very amusign. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EKYPy8VVnaQ
its like very retro maybe.
though now that i'm thinking abotu it, maybe wearing a gas mask while being around my spawn would less the impact of Return of the Jedi Spoiler.
Do perfumes and colognes trigger the same scornful response?
I was wondering about this, too. I hate spray air fresheners but like having candles or even (ex-roommate-hated-it-so-I-don't-oven-use-it-anymore) Nag Champa burning. I also really like it when people use some cologne or perfume or lotion. I'm attracted to people who smell artificially good, I guess.
5 - there is one already that does that. I think (from vague memory of the ads) that it alternates between two.
I'm pretty much the same as Stanley. I don't mind some candles and incenses and things, and some but by no means all colognes or perfumes. But I can't hack spray air fresheners much at all, although the aerosol type are still much better than plugins or those god-awful auto-squirting ones.
so-I-don't-oven-use-it-anymore
Nice even/often compromise.
26: Febreze Noticeables. There's earlier prior art, too.
some but by no means all colognes or perfumes
To be sure, this seems to be too fine a needle for some to thread. I'd propose a rule that cologne/perfume should be detctable—yet not distracting—within private-conversation distances. I can't stand it when a group of people walks past followed by a ten-foot tailwind of CalvinKleinBurberryObsessionMuskLavender vapor. Ack.
Nice even/often compromise.
Yes. Let's call it that.
I'd develop a plug-in air freshener that changed smells every half an hour or so
Every half an hour would get you increasingly overlaying scents, resulting in olfactory cacophony, since I think any given scent doesn't just whoosh itself away as soon as the air freshener is turned off, or put away (or changed).
The effect would be something like the horror an ex used to contrive by combining two of more of those christmas-tree shaped scented things people hang from their car's rear-view mirror. Cinnamon + vanilla! Pine + almond! Horrible. I have no idea why he did this, but I was perpetually removing them when entering his vehicle and secreting them in the glove compartment.
Nothing could be more American than cilantro!
13: Commercials aimed at kids are even stranger
Indeed, but it is particularly amusing (horrifying?) when kids see commercials not actually aimed at them, and PAY ATTENTION.
My six year old recently explained to a friend of mine: I saw on the teevee that there's a special wash that you can buy to help get rid of the all those little red spots on your face! If you use the special face wash, your skin will look lovely and smooth JUST LIKE MINE!
Um.
Plug-ins outlast the smelly plumbers who will be invading your kitchen for a month, but - wink, wink - we know those smelly men will really be here for two months!
Two months? You should be so lucky.
and if i had to change diapers, i'd wear a activated carbon gas mask.
Diapers don't smell that bad until baby starts eating solid food. When the diet includes meat, though, it's Katy bar the door.
33: I scorn all plastic surgery, etc., but if I could get back the skin of my child self, I'd consent to have my face peeled off in its entirety.
Some of us smell like blueberry pie baking in a pine forest naturally, thank you very much.
36: Augh. I really don't need to remember. I'd rather have basil + garlic, if we must.
I'll admit that whenever I spend time in the abode of someone who uses air fresheners, I tend to think: How pleasant this is! [visits the bathroom] Gee it smells nice in here! Also, look, there are no dustballs in the corners!
Insidious, these things are. My mom once grumbled that my house smelled of garlic, and, following her nose, declared that the cutting board was infused with the stuff, and I should really get rid of it, because it really is quite noticeable when one enters the kitchen, dear. I insist that no one else has ever noticed this, so there.
37: Plus garlic smells nice. You should hang your cutting board from the rear view mirror of your car.
we know those smelly men will really be here for two months
The Old Spice commercials are funny. Good job rebranding.
I don't understand the cat food commercials with the magical rainbow land and dancing turkeys and floaty cows. It looks like a commercial for a toy or a cereal that would convince children to nag their parents to buy the thing. Except it's for cat food. Are cats supposed to watch this commercial and then convince their owners to buy the food, or is the idea that cat owners are so stupid they should be treated like preschoolers? Or maybe just that Friskies is laced with hallucinogens for kitties.
I hate all scented candles, air fresheners, and almost all incense. I wish they wouldn't scent cleaning products. But between the nasty natural "almond" stench of Method floor cleaner (which rendered half my apartment uninhabitable for two days) and the focus-grouped inoffensive chemicalness of Lemon Pledge, Pledge wins. Best is just to sweep, or skip cleaning altogether.
40: I think they're trying to make you think of your cat as a child. A child who will repay you for all that Fancy Feast with gratitude and unconditional love.
38: When it wasn't banging me in the head, it might be interesting, I'll give you that. I could, if I were considering scenting my car, hang a bunch of drying basil.
The things people hang from their rear view mirrors kind of fascinate me, actually. Mardi Gras beads? CDs? A graduation tassel? A dreamcatcher? Miniature stuffed animals (ew)? I've mostly gone for hippie things like feathers or little brass bells -- I've given those away as gifts now -- or, yes, at one point a small dreamcatcher with beads that my grandmother made. Goofy, I know.
41 and 42 are me, dammit. Remember personal info!
um... actually, the day care shouldn't be using one that spritzes into the air all the time, right?
for one thing, babies are pretty delicate & prone to big chemical reactions. for another, they have really sensitive senses of smell. so it might be olfactorily pretty unpleasant for them. why not ask for a change?
go ahead, be that parent! it's for a good cause.
32 gets it right. Coriander, on the other hand, would be frighteningly European.
I'm with mcmc, basically. Scented candles are terrible, and I have more experience with them and hence a stronger negative reaction. Walking past Yankee Candle stores or display stands requires me to hold my breath as I pass. I go for unscented cleaning products when I can, and then wonder what the intended market of them is, since I suspect it't not merely those who don't like scents.
40 is interesting, 42 is right, and 43 is something I look at also-- hanging cds with decorative image screenprinted on one side is common.
Last week, there was a 100+ degree day here. I biked. Every single totally buff jogger trailed Axe scent for 30 yards.
Perfume marketing changes too quickly, it's not all that common to catch the scent of an ex.
Hypothesis: Most smells are either bad or food.
I suppose it's possible that all these commercials are an elaborate euphemism for smells associated with crapping. In which case I can't really begrudge the consumers for their purchase, nor the advertisers for their circuitousness.
Hypothesis: Most smells are either bad or food.
Refutation: flowers, weather, clean people very close up.
the cat food commercials with the magical rainbow land and dancing turkeys and floaty cows
Holy shit. That was one trippy ride for that cat.
Chris's refutation could go on. Natural smells: pine forests are actually pretty cool. As are moss-covered forests. Lilacs are heavenly.
To the OP, Mrs y is allergic to air freshener. We once rented an apartment for a holiday where they'd put those things in the electric sockets before we arrived. I thought I was going to have to call an ambulance (not funny in Spanish, which I hardly speak). Does this ever occur to the people who pollute the world with air freshener? Does it fuck.
Maybe we don't know what rob considers food. Like, he participates in teasing Brock, but secretly he discards his cheese to feast on kittens.
No, if people are unaware that other people are allergic to things, the idea that other people are allergic to things doesn't occur to them.
(not funny in Spanish)
I dunno; it's kind of funny in my imagination:
FRONT DESK: [answers phone] "¿Diga?"
CHRIS Y: "¡Nuestra habitación! ¡Es que huele a flores!"
FRONT DESK: "Vale. Venga. Ahora, ¿quién es Flores?"
50: Like the baby wipe commercials that show how effectively they clean up toothpaste.
60. If there'd been a front desk I could have dealt with it, but it was a private flat - it would have taken ringing 112 (Euro equivalent to 911) and talking to a dispatcher. In the even I just got her out of there, opened the windows and disconnected all the smell machines. It was fine after a few hours.
62: Well, that sounds more serious than I was imagining, and now I feel mildly bad for joking about it.
Cheese! Cabbage! Kittens!
I hope to god you aren't claiming that kittens smell good. There is nothing more foul than the back half of a kitten.
Fair enough. Just eat the front half.
63. It was OK, really, more inconvenient than anything. I was a bit mindful that her mother had died less than a year before from breathing issues because the emergency services didn't get there in time (in that case she'd collapsed behind a locked door and they couldn't break in fast enough).
64: I don't remember that part of kittenhood. Funny how memory edits.
Cabbage (cooked), on the other hand. Not to mention the all-day cooking of salt cod.
The perfumes marketed at twelve year old boys are especially evil. Strong is good. Right? I was so happy when it got used as a weapon and I got to confiscate it.
I'm attracted to people who smell artificially goodartificially or naturally not like men,I guess.
Or were you not one of the people in the "I might jump the fence if guys didn't smell so guyish" thread?
68: aw darnit!
Dude wasn't very old.
I spent years looking for a man who smelled like bacon, but turned up empty. Now I'm married to a woman, and I've never been happier!
Or were you not one of the people in the "I might jump the fence if guys didn't smell so guyish" thread?
Huh? I'm not sure what that means. I like when people of any gender smell nice. My dad wears some weird Halston cologne but only on very special occasions, so I like that smell. My brother wears Burberry often but in low doses, so that reminds me of him. My mom wears two different scents fairly regularly, one for the spring/summer one for the fall/winter, again, in low doses.
I think my scent preferences are gender-neutral, if that's what you were getting at.
Er, that's not right. I like scents that find their way to my nose from all the genders and for different reasons! And I also dislike scents from all the genders for different reasons!
50: Lighting a match is far more effective -- and doesn't result in the layered fragrance of say "Fresh Linen" smeared with "Crap."
||
Harvested one frame of honey and wax. Got three jars (four or five pounds?) of honey out of it. Maybe I should have considered the fact that I don't eat honey before I decided I wanted bees. Seems like it will be easy to give it away, though. I have nine more full frames left.
I'm more enthusiastic about the wax. I checked with SWPL, but it didn't tell me what to do. Do I make my own wicks, or buy some? I certainly won't add any scents to the wax, as it already smells like honey.
Aren't any of you guys keeping bees? All the faddish people are doing it.
|>
||
If I really wanted to be authentic, I'd have to go get my own borax (for the wick) from Death Valley, wouldn't I? Anything else is commercial, and not home harvested.
|>
74: possible complete joke misfire. In any case, no provocation intended. There was an odd thread where a few people said, as I recall it, "the main reason I am wholly heterosexual is that the smell of men is repellant to me." I'm not posting this to Standpipe's other blog because I'm afraid it may have sounded like I was being a complete ass and I'm mostly trying to make clear that I was being at most a partial ass.
80: Oh. No worries at all. I'm probably just being dense and not remembering that thread. But you do smell funny.
not home harvested.
You have a home in Death Valley?
The perfumes marketed at twelve year old boys are especially evil.
i wonder what aspects of 12year old boys are popular around here.
No, but I consider all of California my backyard. As I read more about making wicks, I realize that I should also glean the raw cotton bolls from harvested fields in the San Joaquin Valley, then spin them into cords. Keeping bees is hard.
81: It isn't me. There's a room freshener right beside me.
Do these bees stay in the hive, or are they flying all around the neighborhood? If my neighbor started beekeeping, and this meant a large increase in the number of bees near me, things would get ugly pretty quick.
I've been surprised at how few bees I see considering that I've put 60,000 of them in my tiny backyard. They fly towards and away from the hive in a narrow flight path (about two feet across). Outside the flight path, pretty much no bees. I see more in the front yard, but that's because I planted all bee-friendly flowers. (Native bees, too.)
(Oh, they're flying all around the neighborhood, gathering nectar to turn into honey for my friends.)
Do you watch the bees dance?
I've been surprised at how few bees I see considering that I've put 60,000 of them in my tiny backyard.
Was this the thread in which we were discussing the definition of a "sociopath"?
If I find out that the source of my ant problem is my neighbor's ant farm, I am going to be very mad.
Halford hates pretty flowers and vegetables and whatever.
If I find out that the source of my ant problem is my neighbor's ant farm, I am going to be very mad
Just leave me out of it.
There's no worldwide shortage of ants though, Robert. We need more bees. Thank you Megan. Now post me some honey.
Do you watch the bees dance?
Sometimes I try to tell them that I saw a nice pittosporum on the way to work, but I'm never sure if I've got the directions right.
If I find out that the source of my ant problem is my neighbor's ant farm, I am going to be very mad.
Well, how about you listen to my very loud music to calm yourself down? I'm sure you can hear it in your house across the street.
This is the food thread now, right? Okay. I'm watching this video and wondering: do people normally rinse off meat this much? I haven't eaten or prepared meat in twelve years, but she just keeps rinsing it. Is that, like, a technique or some shit? I can't recall seeing people do it.
Now post me some honey.
This is very likely, I now realize. I probably won't be chasing people with jars of it, the way you have to with summer squash. But I don't have my own uses for 60-100lbs of honey a year. I'm also realizing that beekeeping is going to mean keeping all the jars that cross my path and lots of scrubbing off labels.
My plan is to raise endagered Siberian Tigers in the backyard and give them free range in the neighborhood. It will be totally sweet.
Or maybe a Gator farm. What could go wrong?
I'm also realizing that beekeeping is going to mean keeping all the jars that cross my path and lots of scrubbing off labels.
Anyone who wants honey send Megan a jar and the appropriate postage for return. Problem solved.
I'd like to make labels, as well. In my fantasy world, where I am craft-y and diligent, I give away so many cute jars of honey* that people don't notice that I'm actually crappy about gift-giving** and never bring a bottle of wine, since I never drink wine and don't know the first thing about it.
*I'm hoarding the candles, though.
**Despite good intentions.
98,99 I don't think that prospect evoked the right response from me, since I'd be fairly pleased about the addition of exotic animals to the neighborhood.
I'd be fairly pleased about the addition of exotic animals to the neighborhood
Megan must be faster than Halford.
Megan, next Saturday I may be driving through Sacramento. You can give me some honey then.
I'm actually crappy about gift-giving
I suspect most people would really appreciate free, Megan-harvested honey, but if you're really dedicated to maintaining your crappy-gift-giving reputation, you could label the jars "Bee Vomit" or something.
F'real? If you stop by, I will give you a jar of honey. It is light colored, and has some floral taste that everyone comments on but we can't identify. Possibly because we don't know what most urban flowers taste like.
some floral taste that everyone comments on but we can't identify
Air freshener.
80: The people saying that in that thread were heterosexual and were admitting that they just like women for smells of attraction. That they'd realized this. No harm, no foul, I don't think.
Oy, crappy-gift-giver w-the good intentions right here. I have two, TWO gifts sitting at home that I really need to mail and keep failing to.
Megan -- if I ever find that mead recipe I had, you can send the honey to the Breaths and we can have Buck make us a mead.
Dear Megan,
I'll send you fancy labels if you send me honey.
your friend,
Cecily
I've been a little paranoid about any potential long-distance effect on honey from a fairly robust patch of foxglove in my front garden (they're quite nice looking). But apparently, despite its overall toxicity, foxglove nectar is relatively OK. (But oleanders, rhododendrons, mountain laurels, sheep laurel, and azaleas can lead to toxic honey and I have 3 of those.)
109- I don't mean to put togolosh on the spot, but I think it was just him saying that, IIRC.
Anyway, I got the reference, Smearcase. Maybe it's an outer-circle in-joke, thus beyond the ken of front-page posters.
In proper time that ring-adorned
queen excellent in mind
brought the mead cup to Beowulf.
She greeted him, thanking
God that her wish had
been fulfilled, that finally
a hero had come who
she could count on
to stop Grendel's crimes.
112: the trick is to keep the mountain laurel well saturated.
113: Also Helpy-Chalk, as I recall.
So, we are supposed to be encouraging bees? We don't seem to have a shortage of them here. The flowers in the front of the house are awash in them -- a bit hazardous to walk out the front door.
The bee problem is very much larger-scale, no?
the way you have to with summer squash
Oh man, I am so glad that our CSA is done with the squash. I like squash as much as the next guy, but enough is enough.
Dear Cecily,
That is a very tempting offer. Tell me, were you thinking of a cutesy bee theme, perhaps including a pun or two?
Yours,
Megan
Dear Megan,
I'll send you a whole box full of empty glass jars with lids if you send me honey.
your friend,
Molly
Dear Molly,
I can see that I am going to have to make a list for the honey, and your name shall go right near the top.
Taking notes,
Megan
118: Whatever you want, baby. You want cutesy bees and puns? I'll make them. You prefer dense prose and threatening black-and-white images? I'll do my best.
Call it "Halford Honey" and put an ax murderer on the label.
Call it Tom Swifty's Honey, since EM buzzed in first, he said sweetly.
(you guys! ixnay on the unspay or Megan might refuse to give me the honey!)
Megan, I swear, puns only if you want them.
No puns! I was testing you. Which of course you passed brilliantly.
"Punny Honey" would actually contain no puns and thus be a pun-snubbing name.
At one point, a boyfriend's grandfather was written up in his local paper for his bee-keeping. The headline was, (of course?) "To Bee Or Not To Bee!" The grandfather really, really loved the headline until I kind of loved it too, just because it was so great to watch him shake his head and chuckle all over again.
It'd be sweet to be like that guy. People would swarm you, asking for favors. You'd be queen for a day! It'd really take the sting out of the hives you've no doubt gotten from this comment.
I've got a compound vision for a really great pun.
My friend who took up beekeeping when I did (and is a million times more in love with it) has embraced bee kitsch, bringing bee-themed knickknacks into her home. I thought the increased likelihood of receiving bee-themed kitsch was one of the great perils of the endeavor, but she is not afraid. Nay, she walks straight into the heart of the flame.
ACH, TURNED OUT THA WAG 'ELD ANTS.
101: I never drink wine
I'VE HEARD THAT BEFORE!
With each delicious spoonful of honey, you are tasting the pain of Megan's insect-plague suffering neighbors. I hope you are all proud of yourself. Also the honey probably has poison-flower problems. Fortunately, when you are all gone I can rule Unfogged.
If you can't drink all the mead, i bet mead vinegar would be a great gift for the person who has everything, and also 1-up your swpl friends.
Di is clearly right that when you want to get rid of a smell you want to burn it up, not cover it up. Megan's candles in bathrooms everywhere! No, wait.
Same goes for people, basically. You want their natural underlying scent to be appealing, and if they occasionally add something subtle and artificial on top, so be it.
Now post me some honey.
International English fail! I read this first in the sense of "post a comment" and only then remembered you're British.
bees or chickens or rabbit or whatever make me think suburbs wouldn't be quite so bad; if i had to be in on its an alternative to salt/gravel/zen garden.
133: Plague is yellow jackets. Honeybees sting sweetly on those rare occasions when they sting at all.
And i will admit the superiority of honey to sugar in nutritional interventions, inc. labrats and Man, is one of the more vexing things i have encountered.
||So, uh, anyone know how to find the surface area of a pyramid with a parallelagram base? We know the dimensions of the parallelogram and of one triangle side. Yeah, that's right. I'm stumped by 7th grade math. |>
139: The area of a parallelogram is base times height, where the height needs to be measured perpendicular to the base. The area of a triangle is 1/2 base times height. Then just add them all up. I'm not sure what "one triangle side" means; it's not clear if you know the heights of all the triangular faces? I'm not sure how to give more details if you can't post a picture or something.
1/2 base * height for each triangle,
base * height for the parallelogram.
Make a right triangle sides adj,opp,hyp, the angle is arctan (a/o).
By the way, the reason the area of a parallelogram is base times height is that it's the same as a rectangle: Cavalieri's principle tells you that you can just take a bunch of slices through it, scoot them all over to go directly on top of each other, and make a rectangle out of it.
Another way to see that is to chop a right triangle off one end and move it over to other end to make a rectangle.
DOWN WITH THOSE WHO PROFIT FROM THE FORCED LABOR OF SOCIAL INCEST!
Thanks. Don't know the angles of anything. Just the length and width of the base and the sides of one triangle. Maybe it's a poorly drawn problem. Oh well, I shouldn't be encouraging her to do math anyway.
Is the triangle you have dimensions for isosceles? If it's seventh grade math, I'd assume all the triangles have sides of the same length.
133 and before: But honey bee hives don't generally lead to an increased number of stings in the surrounding area, Halford. Plus, there are probably several natural hives in your neighborhood without you even being aware of it.
My step-uncle (ok, he's actually like a second cousin or something but we call him uncle) is a professional bee-keeper in the desert outside of San Diego. Best stuff ever.
I recently bought some local honey made by bees feeding off yellow star thistle. There were many bee puns on the label about how tough and hardy an insect had to be in order to make use of that plague plant.
What are the numbers you know?
Oh gosh, well, let me see.
One.
Two.
Three.
Oh, uh, pi is in there.
Four.
Oh shoot I forgot zero.
Um, five.
Oh gosh, and the negative numbers. Negative one, definitely.
Uh, man. This is tough. Seven.
Oh! A hundred!
Hm.
Is L a number?
No, I guess not.
One? I think I already said that.
If you're not explicitly told that the base is not a rectangle, assume it's a rectangle. Then to get the triangle, drop a perpendicular along the plane of the triangle to the base. That bisects the triangle base. Now you have a right triangle with known adjacent side and opposite, included angle = arctan (o/a).
It's summer, are you doing this for fun?
147: Mr. Blandings builds a Bayesian Hypothesis.
What if Di Kotimy told you that the pyramid was made on Tuesday?
If it's seventh grade math, I'd assume all the triangles have sides of the same length.
This could be true of the most symmetric possible pyramid you can build over a parallelogram. (Note that the parallelogram's sides are not all equal, so if they are e.g. A and B and the one triangle that is given has sides (B, C, D), then the neighboring triangles will have sides (A, D, C).)
It's possible to find the area of a triangle given its three sides using Heron's formula, but deriving this formula using only seventh-grade math [which I assume means no trig] is a bit difficult.
153: But was it built using slave labor?
154.last: haven't seventh graders had the pythagorean theorem?
156: If the base isn't square, it was probably made in Detroit, so the surface area is pretty big.
157: The pyramids pre-date Pythagoras, silly.
Jesus Christ. Bees and Math, two of my least favorite things. This thread is my nightmare.
154: But the truly most symmetric pyramid would be composed of triangles with sides of (A, C, C) and (B, C, C), in which case it's not so tough.
I'm not sure what "one triangle side" means; it's not clear if you know the heights of all the triangular faces?
It means they know the lengths of two of the vertically-rising edges but not the height of the pyramid.
157: OK, so maybe not difficult. Tedious, at least.
161: That's geometrically impossible, I think, unless A = B. In general, a pyramid over a parallelogram has four completely different triangular faces. Symmetry can at best get you two pairs of congruent faces.
165: unless the parallelogram is a square.
unless A = B.
A = A, essear. Jesus Christ.
Which is to say, A=B.
Hi!
Can I tell you some of the numbers I know?
Nine!
A = A... Jesus Christ.
This is important! This means something!
168: nevertheless, it is misleading to say that "symmetry can at best get you two pairs of congruent faces".
170: Fair enough, Mr. Pedant. The symmetry of a general parallelogram can at best get you two pairs of congruent faces. The symmetry of special, unusually symmetric parallelograms can do better.
151: An excuse to link to Jeffrey Lewis from a couple of years back. (Kupferberg has several cameos.)
It's a summer "bridge" class for the kids moving into the advanced math course next year in middle school. The dimensions given, I can figure the area of one face and the base. Now it's kind of bugging me, and she has long since moved on to the internet...
My parallelogram is unusually symmetric ... laydeez.
Sometimes, when a student has a problem, she thinks, "I know, I'll use the internet". Now she has entered a death-spiral of procrastination from which she will never recover.
173: If you can post a scanned or photographed image of the problem somewhere, I'm sure the hivemind can produce an answer and a good explanation of it. (I only mention the idea because people sometimes forget how handy digital cameras are for this sort of thing.)
Also the honey probably has poison-flower problems.
Naw, we don't have those big stands of oleander up here; they can't take our Arctic winters more than the occasional frost. No foxglove that I've seen. Nope, the honey is spiced only by the misery of my neighbors, and oh! what a sweet nectar results.
I'm just glad I slipped 164 in before 165. It's actually not so much the bees, I think, as the sazeracs. Also, the fact that the bar I'm currently sitting at is slowly rotating may be messing with my geometry.
175: Indeed. Though she started on some math page, she is now on to "Stardoll" (some fashion/interior decorating thing). And that only after spending some time on a site involving a song with lyrics that are predominantly "llama llama duck."
177: I'd have to go downstairs and get a digital camera and laptop for that.
180.last: You live above an all-night electronics store? Sweet.
Er, 177 s/b 176. I'm struggling with numbers tonight.
... and now I'm watching the "llama llama duck" song.
151: One more, "CIA Man" updated and original.
Is L a number?
Know what comes after XLIX? You, getting off my lawn.
180, 183 - I'm sure you've seen "Sawyer, Sawyer, Jack" too.
151. Damn, I'm so old that upsets me a lot.
when you want to get rid of a smell you want to burn it up, not cover it up. [...] Same goes for people, basically.
That's just making me laugh so much, though I know it's not what Witt meant exactly.
Megan,
I planted three bee balm plants in the front yard this weekend. We still get good numbers of bees, and the dog is pretty good about not eating them. Oh, and what I was actually going to say is that I start physical therapy tomorrow and will soon have an actual exercise plan and whatnot. I'm not sure why I didn't make myself do that sooner, but it's good news!
Oooo! Starting up a new regime? I hope it feels great, and I hope your body loves it.
190: My body hates today with the rainy weather making my arm seize up, so I'm looking forward to any positive change that doesn't include a lot of muscle relaxants, which feel great but leave me helplessly dopey.
A good exercise program should bring positive change.
Here goes. I'm suiting up so I can take out a second frame, so I can have neB's honey ready by Saturday. I'll let you know in half an hour if I get stung to death.
|So, uh, anyone know how to find the surface area of a pyramid with a parallelagram base? We know the dimensions of the parallelogram and of one triangle side. Yeah, that's right. I'm stumped by 7th grade math.
I don't think you've got enough information to determine the surface area. Call the base ABCD and the apex E. If all you've got are AB, BC, CD, DA, AE and BE, you don't have enough information to deduce CE and DE, which you need to work out the areas of triangles BCE, CDE and DAE, and thus the total surface area of the pyramid.
192: neB -- Bring her clean jars. You must have some in your recycling, or you can find some. She's going to be jarring a lot of honey. Any size -- little ones are good for gifts, big ones for storage.
Well, I don't have to jar all the honey at once. After this frame is done, I can let the other ones stay in hive for a while, until jars accumulate. I hadn't realized that beekeeping was going to include jar management.
Also, frame extracted. A couple fatalities, but neither of those mine.
I'm projecting from Buck's beermaking experience, but I'd say that you're going to need a jar system. You could just buy halfpint canning jars, but that seems out of character.
First the Olivia Munn thing, now Megan's pilferage. It's hard out there for a Bee.
Or, of course, you could become a potter as well, and handmake little earthenware crocks to be closed with big corks.
I'm appreciating specialization in a whole new way. Also, industrial logistics and goods management.
Is there actually a pie which is Honey Pie? Or is it just a term of endearment? It sounds like it would make my teeth hurt.
You could probably substitute it in custards? Honey-Lemon Meringue? Although I have the impression that honey's hard to bake with because it's non-standard, in that the water content is all over the place.
Don't bring honeybunch and sugartits to Heebie's next pot luck.
When my parents made strawberry jam they always sealed the jar by pouring melted wax directly onto the top of the still-warm jam. It forms an airtight seal and doesn't contaminate the jam. I don't know if it would work for honey, but since wax is what the bees use for storage anyway it ought to.
I have this vague impression that you really don't need to seal honey, because it's naturally antibacterial. Just a clean screw-top should work.
Yeah, that's my understanding, too. My Dad did very complicated boiling the jars and lids, and handling everything with recently boiled tongs. But I think honey doesn't require that. If I'm reusing jars, it maybe wouldn't be a bad idea to boil them at some point (although not immediately before because if there's any water in the jar, the honey will crystallize around it).
Jar management is an additional chore! An unexpected one!
(Off to a meeting.)
I've had it substituted in treacle tarts. Seemed OK - too sweet for me, but most things are.
If I'm reusing jars, it maybe wouldn't be a bad idea to boil them
On the other hand, honey-flavored mayonnaise: have you ever had it? Neither have I. Maybe it's awesome.
When I think honey and desert, it's baklava, baklava, baklava, all the way down. Oh, yum.
205,206: Now that I think about it, you are correct. IIRC, one of the ways bodies were preserved for transport in ancient times was by immersion in honey. Not that I'm trying to give you any ideas, Megan.
201: Apparently, honey pie does exist.
http://www.cooksrecipes.com/pie/honey_pie_recipe.html
honey and desert
Let's all pretend that was an intentional misspelling.
or here, I forgot about the unfogged pool being limited-access.
212/213: Ooh, I like that it's both menacing and vaguely rockabilly or something. Yum!
211: no, he means "when he thinks about honey and things he deserves to have".
I never drink wine and don't know the first thing about it
Easy! Swap some of your honey for Jesus' wine. (Jesus McQueen, that is; drinking that other guy's blood seems unhygenic.)
I'm appreciating specialization in a whole new way. Also, industrial logistics and goods management.
TOLD YOU SO!
You remembered my barn!
I'm afraid I don't have the taste buds to appreciate any wine (as in, it all tastes horrible to me, every single time). Trying additional wines (even good ones) isn't going to change that.
Baklava seems do-able, and straightforward if I buy the phyllo dough. But if I've never craved it before, should I make it just to use honey?
It looks a little bit like a captcha, though.
Not really. It's wonderful if you like honey, but it's very much like eating honey with a spoon (and crunchy pastry, but you've got a mouthful of honey). Again, if you liked honey, there's nothing better than Greek yogurt drizzled with honey (and some chopped, toasted nuts if you've got them) but not if you don't like honey.
I like honey, but it is too sweet for me to use it in the quantities I'm facing. This is a pretty trivial problem to have, though, as the harvests are spoken for as soon as I mention them.
I bet a honey doughnut would be good, since you would be combining sweetness with some balancing fat.
Still, if 'too sweet' is a category for you, baklava is too sweet. Try the Greek yogurt thing, though -- the creamy sourness is perfect with honey.
187: Note to self -- "Google first before telling Rory to look for something mentioned on Unfogged." Oops. Thanks Asilon!
193: Thanks, Ajay, for actually expressing that in coherent language. And confirming that it really was insolvable as presented.
Will do. I like yogurts with a raw sugar, sometimes, so I imagine I'd like them with honey.
218.2: The wine isn't for you to drink; it's for you to take to dinner parties so that you're not a lazy, thoughtless guest.
I wonder how different mead and tej are.
Dear Megan,
I'm sorry.
your friend (I hope),
Cecily
Dear Cecily,
That's very funny; I like that they are strategizing. I haven't noticed that they have any priorities that come before honey, so I wonder what Plan A is about.
Always and ever,
Megan
I wonder what Plan A is about
The same thing it always is, Pinky. To take over the world.
Do you think Native Americans might've used honey as a contraceptive?
The hoohole is killing me here.
Maybe your hoohole is killing you because you were using honey as a contraceptive. You are probably allergic.
Low hanging fruit is delicious with honey.