Mason jar

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Nourishing Traditions: The Cookbook That Challenges Politically Correct Nutrition and The... by Sally Fallon, Pat Connolly, Mary G. Enig, Phd.

British Empire, classic study, clean water, Community Supported Agriculture, germ theory of disease, Louis Pasteur, Mason jar, out of africa, profit motive, the market place, the scientific method

Pound with a wooden pounder or a meat hammer for about 10 minutes to release juices. Place in 2 quart-sized, wide-mouth mason jars and press down firmly with a pounder or meat hammer until juices come to the top of the cabbage. The top of the cabbage mixture should be at least 1 inch below the top of the jars. Cover tightly and keep at room temperature for about 3 days before transferring to cold storage. Variation: Traditional Cortido Omit salt and whey and use 4-6 cups pineapple vinegar. Mix all ingredients except pineapple vinegar together in a large bowl and pound lightly. Stuff cabbage loosely into 3 quart-sized, wide-mouth mason jars and add enough vinegar to cover the cabbage.

Wash berries and place in a bowl with remaining ingredients. Carefully mash down with a wooden pounder or a meat hammer until berries are well crushed. Mix thoroughly and place a quart-sized, wide-mouth mason jar. The top of the preserves should be at least 1 inch below the top of the jar. Cover tightly and keep at room temperature for 2 days before transferring to the refrigerator. Use within 2 months. Variation: Berry Syrup Omit pectin and calcium water. Place berries in a quart-sized, wide-mouth mason jar and press down lightly. Mix remaining ingredients and pour into jar. Add enough filtered water to bring level of the liquid to the top of the berries.

Sprouted grains should usually be eaten lightly steamed or added to soups and casseroles. No special equipment is required to transform grains and seeds into sprouts—just wide-mouth, quart-sized mason jars with a round of window screen material cut to fit into the lid of the jar, replacing the solid insert. For seeds that sprout easily, See Sources. The method for sprouting all grains and seeds is the same—only the length of time needed to accomplish full germination varies, depending on the size and nature of the seed. Simply fill a mason jar one-third full with any grain or seed. Add filtered water to the top of the jar and screw on the top with its screen insert.


pages: 298 words: 76,727

The Microbiome Solution by Robynne Chutkan M.D.

clean water, Community Supported Agriculture, David Strachan, discovery of penicillin, epigenetics, Helicobacter pylori, hygiene hypothesis, Mason jar, meta-analysis, microbiome, rewilding, sugar pill

Add some dried cranberries and walnuts and drizzle with the balsamic maple dressing. Store extra dressing in the refrigerator for up to 5 days. Serve warm or at room temperature. Mason Jar Salads Imagine opening up your refrigerator and seeing ready-to-go salads all lined up just waiting to be eaten. While an official recipe to create a mason jar salad isn’t really necessary, there is a bit of an art to building the perfect mason jar salad to avoid ending up eating a soggy mess. (Hint: it’s all about the layering.) Mason Jar Size: Use a widemouthed jar that’s easy to fill . . . and easy to dig into. The pint size is perfect for an individual salad and is deceptively bigger and more filling than it looks.

*SERVES 1 Ingredients ½ cup gluten-free rolled oats 1 tablespoon chia seeds ½ cup DIY Nut Milk ½ teaspoon ground cinnamon ½ teaspoon pure vanilla extract (omit if nut milk is flavored) 1 teaspoon maple syrup TOPPINGS: fresh fruit (sliced bananas, apples, pears, chopped peaches, or fresh berries), nuts, shredded coconut, seeds Method PLACE THE OATS, chia seeds, nut milk, cinnamon, vanilla, and maple syrup in a mason jar. Mix well. Place in the refrigerator overnight. In the morning, stir the mixture and add any desired toppings. VARIATION: For a thicker and more filling meal, mash together 1 tablespoon almond butter and ½ banana. Place in the mason jar with the oat mixture to soak overnight. Quinoa Berry Breakfast Bowl Start your day right with a warm quinoa breakfast bowl. With all the essential amino acids and a big dose of plant-based protein, it’s hard to beat the sustained energy you get from a meal filled with quinoa (technically a seed).

Drain the water and place the soaked nuts in the bowl of a blender with the filtered water. Blend for a few minutes. For a touch of sweetness, add in dates, if desired. Toss in the salt. Blend again until smooth. Pour the mixture into a nut milk bag and squeeze out all of the liquid over a bowl. Discard the pulp and place the milk in a mason jar or airtight glass container. Store in the refrigerator for up to 3 days. VARIATIONS: Once you get comfortable with the basic recipe, feel free to add pure vanilla extract, ground cinnamon, turmeric, cocoa powder, or any other flavors and spices you desire. Green Colada A Live Dirty, Eat Clean “mocktail.”


pages: 431 words: 99,919

Fiber Fueled: The Plant-Based Gut Health Program for Losing Weight, Restoring Your Health, and Optimizing Your Microbiome by Will Bulsiewicz

autism spectrum disorder, David Strachan, epigenetics, Helicobacter pylori, hygiene hypothesis, Louis Pasteur, Mason jar, medical residency, meta-analysis, microbiome, mouse model, randomized controlled trial, traumatic brain injury, ultra-processed food, zero-sum game

Rather than searching the Internet for specific proportions, I’d really encourage you to pull an Emeril and just go *BAM* and throw some stuff in the mason jar and see what happens. It’s more fun. Here’s how you do it: Lightly rinse your cabbage. Nothing aggressive that would kill the bacteria. Peel back the top two layers of leaves. Chop the cabbage to your desired kraut thickness. I like it thick! Put your hands into the cabbage and work on it to break it up and soften. Feel that connection to the food. Pack into a 1-quart mason jar. Feel free to add garlic cloves, caraway seeds, or spices if you like. No recipes here!

Add 2 tablespoons of broccoli sprouting seeds to a wide-mouthed 1-quart mason jar. Cover with 2 inches of filtered water and cap with a sprouting lid. Store in a warm, dark place, like the kitchen cabinet, overnight. In the morning you’re going to drain the water. This is the only time you’re going to leave the seeds submerged in water. From here on out it’ll be rinse and drain. Rinse the seeds with fresh water two or three times per day. Swirl, then drain the water. It’s important to get most of the water out, so one strategy is to place the mason jar upside down in a large bowl so that it’s at a 45-degree angle (or so) so the drops can continue to fall out.

So simple. No need to add any starter culture—all the microbes you need are already part of the cabbage microbiome. But sinking my hands into the chopped cabbage and working on it to release some of the juices and soften it made me feel connected to the food. It was a living food. I popped my mason jar of water, salt, and cabbage on the kitchen counter where it sat for weeks. Yes, weeks! My wife and I were a little bit scared of it, to be honest. It felt so weird to have food that’s not in the fridge. How could this be okay to eat? After a few weeks, we tried it. It was . . . very crunchy!


pages: 178 words: 34,442

More Plants Less Waste: Plant-Based Recipes + Zero Waste Life Hacks With Purpose by Max La Manna

carbon footprint, Kickstarter, Mason jar

What you are experiencing is a smell that is made up of food particles that float around and eventually settle on other foods which isn’t exactly what you want to be tasting. Thankfully you can keep your fridge smelling so fresh and so clean with this easy do-it-yourself hack that can keep your fridge odour-free. 100g bicarbonate of soda small Mason jar 10 drops essential oil small kitchen cloth Put the bicarbonate of soda into a small Mason jar and add the essential oil. Place a small cloth over the opening. Place in the back of fridge up to 3 months. Smelly compost? Dirty bird bath? When your fridge freshener is finished, add it to a compost or use it to wash out your bird bath. #NoWaste DIY INSECT REPELLENT I don’t trust what’s in those single-use plastic insect repellent bottles, so I make my own.

The simple recipe is easy to put together and feels more natural than rubbing on some manufactured pour-clogging deodorant. 4 tsp bicarbonate of soda or arrow root 5 tsp soft coconut oil 5–10 drops essential oil small mason jar Put the bicarbonate of soda and coconut oil into a bowl and mix well, then add 5–10 drops of essential oils, depending on the strength of the oil and how strong you want your deodorant to smell. Place in a small mason jar and store in a dark and cool area. Apply by scooping out a quarter of a teaspoon with a spoon. Rub it together in both hands and apply to your armpits. Keep store, sealed in a cool dark cupboard or fridge for 6 months.

Spread the mixture evenly over a baking sheet – make sure it doesn’t get crowded; you may need to use another baking sheet. Bake for 15–20 minutes until golden brown. If you need more time bake for another 5 minutes, or until crisp. Remove from the oven and toss the granola a bit to release a bit of heat. Allow it to completely cool on the baking sheet. Store in a sealed container or Mason jar – it should keep for a couple weeks. TIP If you like clumpy and crispy granola, which is my personal favourite, do not touch the granola while it bakes. If you want crumbly granola, toss and stir a bit during the process. EASY CASHEW YOGHURT Do you ever think how your great-grandparents used to cook?


pages: 127 words: 38,674

Simple Matters: Living With Less and Ending Up With More by Erin Boyle

big-box store, Indoor air pollution, lateral thinking, Mason jar, Pepto Bismol, place-making, Ralph Waldo Emerson, sharing economy

If you bring your own cloth produce bags, you reduce the amount of waste that you funnel to your nearby landfill or recycling center, too. At home, I like to use mason jars for bulk storage. At around fifteen dollars for a pack of twelve (or no cost at all if you take the time to collect used ones), these glass jars are definitely the best bang for your buck. They come in lots of sizes, so there are options for things we might like to have more of, like sugar or flour, and things we might only have a few of, like dried apricots. In a kitchen with open shelving, a basic mason jar is still pretty enough to look at that you won’t mind keeping it out in the open. A sheet of muslin coated with beeswax, jojoba oil, and tree resin creates the tacky cloth called Bee’s Wrap that will cling to a bowl like plastic wrap.

With only a bit of care, they won’t warp, and they take scratches and nicks and everyday wear with gusto. Measuring cups and spoons: Some things do call for a little precision. A one-cup liquid measure and a set of dry measures is all we use, plus a set of measuring spoons. All of them are stainless steel, utilitarian, and sturdy. (If space is an issue, a standard 8-ounce mason jar can stand in for a one-cup liquid measure.) Mixing bowls: Whether tempered glass, stainless steel, or sturdy stoneware, a solid set of mixing bowls is useful for all manner of recipes, and an attractive set can do double-duty as serving bowls. Toxins The word natural gets thrown around a lot, but what does it mean?

So instead of looking for a storage “solution,” I’ve opted for reducing my storage needs altogether. Instead of stocking dozens of pre-ground spices and dried herbs, I rely heavily on fresh-cut herbs and fresh-ground spices, bought only when I need them. For those few nonperishable spices I like to always have on hand, I keep them in a set of 4-ounce mason jars, easily stackable and scannable. I’ll pause to say that in a house that you own, built-in storage units can undoubtedly be helpful. A closet outfitted with custom pull-out drawers, sized perfectly to fit a folded sweater, has undeniable appeal. Kitchen cabinets sized to fit your cookie sheets?


pages: 278 words: 42,509

The Complete Book of Home Organization: 336 Tips and Projects by Abowlfulloflemons.com, Toni Hammersley

Downton Abbey, Mason jar

STEP THREE Clear out a kitchen cabinet, shelf, or drawer that will be used as your baking station. STEP FOUR Label your containers and stock your new space. You can use any type of container to create an organized baking space. I chose OXO containers—they’re easy to open when your hands are messy and they fit well together. Another idea would be mason jars. Your favorite mixing bowls should also find their way to your new station. 016 STOCK YOUR BAKING CABINET WITH THE BASICS If you’re a baker—whether aspiring or accomplished—you likely have a lot of ingredients on hand. Use this checklist to fill your containers. LARGE CONTAINERS All-purpose flour Self-rising flour Bread flour Powdered sugar Old-fashioned oats Quick-cooking oats Granulated sugar MEDIUM CONTAINERS Light brown sugar Dark brown sugar Chocolate chips Bisquick mix SMALL CONTAINERS Cocoa powder Raisins Baking chocolate bars Baking powder Baking soda Yeast (individually packaged) Cornstarch 017 DESIGNATE A DRINK STATION If you’re a coffee lover, it’s quite easy to save yourself both time and money by creating a mini coffee shop right in your very own kitchen!

Through the years, I attempted to organize it and to keep things in it looking nice, but no matter how organized I had it, it seemed that it was still hard to tell when I was running out of food and it still looked haphazard because the rest of the family really didn’t put things back in the spots I’d designated. Finally, I purchased large mason jars, clear containers, and white bins from Ikea and Target. I tried to find containers for each dry good that could hold all of what comes in each box or bag so that I didn’t have extra contents to deal with or store separately. Now I can look into the pantry and see exactly what is left in each container.

Organizing your food into categories in bins will help keep your pantry looking nice and neat. Your categories will be specific to your family, but consider including: school, breakfast, pasta, baking, sauce, bread, snacks, sides, and so on. You can also empty bags and boxes of dry goods into clear canisters or mason jars. 5. CLEAN Once you are finished organizing everything into categories, wipe out your pantry, then sweep and mop the floor. You want it to be nice and clean before you put everything away. 6. LABEL Label each bin and container with a labeler, or hang a tag on the baskets or bins, or on the front of the shelves where they’ll live. 7.


Sustainable Minimalism: Embrace Zero Waste, Build Sustainability Habits That Last, and Become a Minimalist Without Sacrificing the Planet (Green Housecleaning, Zero Waste Living) by Stephanie Marie Seferian

8-hour work day, Airbnb, big-box store, carbon footprint, circular economy, clean water, climate anxiety, Community Supported Agriculture, coronavirus, COVID-19, crowdsourcing, do what you love, emotional labour, food desert, imposter syndrome, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), lifestyle creep, Mason jar, mass immigration, microplastics / micro fibres, ride hailing / ride sharing

Items That Last Nearly Forever White rice Dried beans Dried lentils Honey Tea Chocolate Unsweetened cocoa Sugar Cornstarch Vinegar Dried pasta Canned goods Flour Items That Last a Long Time (but Should be Checked) Baking powder Baking soda Condiments Oils Dried egg pasta Whole wheat pasta While investing in commercial storage systems to organize your pantry may be tempting, storage “solutions” are often unnecessary. Instead of buying new bins, baskets, and containers, use mason jars to organize food items effortlessly. Be sure to label the jars and store them with the label facing outward. If you don’t have mason jars on hand, simply repurpose jars from the supermarket by washing them thoroughly and removing their labels. If they have lingering smells, put two tablespoons of baking soda inside with a bit of water, shake, and leave it overnight.

Thriftiness was a way of life for our grandparents and great-grandparents, and they boldly reused countless household items so that nothing valuable became waste. Sustainable minimalism is mismatched and repurposed. A commitment to low-waste living isn’t about investing in perfectly uniform mason jars that line the pantry. It isn’t about purchasing immaculate stainless steel reusables with cutesy labels, either. Sustainable minimalism is mismatched and repurposed. It’s adorably threadbare rags, reused pickle jars that now hold lentils, and decades-old quality utensils and appliances. A low-waste lifestyles uses what you already have until it breaks or runs out, as repairing, repurposing, and reusing are the sustainable minimalist way.

Be sure to wipe away food residue and grease before recycling. Glass Jars I am a proud jar maximalist and have a swoon-worthy collection of glass jars in varying sizes on hand at all times. Jars ensure both organization and tidiness, and thanks to their well-fitting lids, they keep food fresh, too. While I rely on mason jars again and again when canning and preserving food, I repurpose jars from the supermarket for organization in nearly every room in my home. Utilize jars for food storage. Store leftover broths, soups, sauces, and condiments in jars in your refrigerator. Separate grains and loose-leaf tea, as well as pantry staples like lentils, grains, beans, and popcorn kernels into respective jars, too, and be sure to clearly label them.


Simply Living Well: A Guide to Creating a Natural, Low-Waste Home by Julia Watkins

airport security, big-box store, biodiversity loss, carbon footprint, circular economy, clean water, demand response, Mason jar, microplastics / micro fibres, off-the-grid

Instead of Choose Plastic trash bags (See Newspaper bin liners) or brown paper bags Single-use plastic shopping bags Reusable cloth shopping bags Single-use produce and bulk bags Reusable cotton produce and bulk bags Plastic bread bags Reusable cotton bread bags (or pillowcases) Disposable paper towels “Unpaper towels”—reusable cloth towels or rags Disposable napkins Reusable cloth napkins Microfiber cloths (contain plastic) Cotton or hemp rags, bar mop towels Plastic scrub brushes Wooden, compostable scrub brushes Disposable sponges Biodegradable sponges, loofah pads, Swedish towels Plastic food storage containers, disposable take-out containers Glass or stainless steel containers, mason jars Disposable coffee cups/mugs Reusable coffee cups/mugs Disposable water bottles Water filter and reusable water bottles, mason jars Disposable plastic straws Stainless steel, glass, or bamboo straws Disposable cutlery Stainless steel or bamboo cutlery Plastic cooking utensils Wooden or stainless steel utensils Plastic-packaged liquid dish soap Package-free bar soap (castile or savon de Marseilles) Commercial cleaning supplies Homemade, nontoxic cleaning supplies (see Natural Cleaning Supplies) Single-use plastic wrap, single-use aluminum foil Beeswax food wraps, cloth container covers Single-use parchment paper Compostable parchment paper, silicone baking mats Plastic sandwich or storage bags Reusable storage bags (silicone or cloth) Plastic lunchboxes or bento boxes Stainless steel lunch boxes Plastic ice trays and ice pop molds Stainless steel or silicone ice trays and ice pop molds Single-use muffin liners Silicone or compostable parchment muffin liners Single-use spice containers Reusable jars and bulk spices Single-use tea bags Reusable tea infuser and bulk tea Disposable coffee pods French press or coffee maker and reusable coffee filters Teflon cookware Cast-iron cookware Plastic cutting boards Wooden cutting boards Disposable gloves Compostable rubber gloves Plastic lighter Wooden matches Invest in and shop with cloth bags, glass jars, or other reusable containers.

Don’t be fooled into thinking that you need to buy your way to a simpler, more sustainable lifestyle. Instead, use up disposables and plastics until they no longer serve their purpose and then replace them with a more sustainable option. If you can find an item secondhand—terrific! If you can use a reusable item for multiple purposes—even better! A mason jar, for example, can serve as a drinking glass, water bottle, storage jar, or to-go container. Ultimately, you get to decide what you need. Here are a few ideas to help you brainstorm. Low-Waste Grocery Shopping Grocery shopping presents a significant opportunity for reducing waste. There are rolls of plastic bags waiting to be used in the produce and bulk shopping aisles, and the cashier almost always insists on bagging already-packaged meat, poultry, and fish in an extra plastic bag.

Homemade Beeswax Wraps Reusable Cloth Container Covers As an alternative to aluminum foil, plastic wrap, and wax paper, cloth container covers keep consumables protected and contaminant-free. They’re also an ideal way to repurpose old fabric scraps. I like to make them in different sizes—small ones make great mason jar covers, while larger ones can be used to cover bowls, pots, or crocks. If you’re wondering if they’re easy to clean, the answer is yes, yes, yes! If they’re not too dirty, you can hand-wash them in the sink; otherwise, just toss them into the washing machine, wash on cold, and let them air-dry. Materials 100% cotton scrap fabric Iron Bowl or jar Ruler Marking pencil Scissors Sewing pins Sewing machine ¼-inch-wide elastic cording Safety pin Directions 1.


pages: 306 words: 94,204

Farm City: The Education of an Urban Farmer by Novella Carpenter

back-to-the-land, crack epidemic, David Attenborough, dumpster diving, gentrification, Golden Gate Park, haute cuisine, hobby farmer, Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, Mason jar, McMansion, New Urbanism, Port of Oakland, Ralph Waldo Emerson, rewilding, Silicon Valley, urban decay, urban renewal, Whole Earth Catalog

I picked up my first victim, a little yellow chick covered in a soft, downy fuzz, and held her tiny pink beak up to the homemade waterer. It consisted of a mason jar with tiny holes drilled into the lid; when the jar was turned upside down into a shallow dish, capillary action allowed only a bit of water to dribble out and pool in the dish. Amazingly, the chick knew just what to do. She sipped up a beakful of water, then tilted her head back to swallow. The mason-jar waterer glugged, and more water seeped out. I released her into the cardboard-box brooder, and she wandered over for another sip of water. Then she realized she was alone.

Commercial beekeepers use plug-in knives, automated de-cappers, and motorized extractors, and they heat and filter their honey. Instead, Joel and family steadied our extractor, which had a tendency to keel over, cranked it as hard as they could, then let the honey drizzle out into a few quart-size mason jars. We were all sticky with honey and buzzed from licking our fingers and chewing on the leftover wax, which reminded Margaret of chewing gum. We extracted eight quarts of honey in less than an hour. When we lived in Seattle, it took days to get the honey out. Our new machine was impressive indeed.

Something skittered across her kitchen floor. “Bunnies!” Nico shouted when she saw my eyes following the shadow. There were four of them—two with white and brown spots, one pure white, and one solid brown—milling around the couch. “The woman I bought them from,” Nico said, offering me a homemade pickle from a murky mason jar, “lived entirely off a quarter of an acre of land.” “Really?” I said. “Eating rabbits?” I didn’t know much about rabbit tending, except that my back-to-the-land parents had once raised them for meat. Nico’s plan was grander than mere survival; she had high-end dining in her sights. Rabbit had recently been showing up on the menus of fancy restaurants, and Nico, always a dabbler looking for a new project, bought three young females and a solid brown buck named Simon with the idea that she would sell their offspring to these restaurants.


pages: 22 words: 5,377

New Year, Same Trash: Resolutions I Absolutely Did Not Keep by Samantha Irby

Kickstarter, Mason jar

I love reggae music and letting dudes in linen pants push up on me at the bar, but if we’re being 100 percent honest with each other, I really can’t commit to anything once a month. I don’t even get my period once a goddamned month. 10. Take some cooking classes. Did not do this. I did make jam, though. Like, from scratch. I peeled a bushel of peaches and mixed powdered pectin with sugar and sterilized a bunch of mason jars and even tied ribbons around some of the lids. I was feeling pretty twee and smug about the whole thing, but then who the fuck can eat thirty-seven jars of peach fucking jam? Send me your address so I can mail you some. I ate one fucking piece of toast and was like, “OVER THIS.” Help me. 11.

And it’s not really the swimming part; it’s the carrying-a-bag-full-of-wet-towels-and-a-slimy-suit-home-on-the-bus-in-the-dead-of-winter part that’s hard. I maybe went three times. All year. 17. Eat more healthy breakfasts. This will go down as the year I started making vegan overnight oats: 1 banana, smashed ½ cup rolled oats ¼ teaspoon cinnamon ¾ cup almond milk Mix that all together and pour into a mason jar—so people at work will know how healthy and Pinteresting you are—then stick it in the fridge overnight. Sneak bites while hovered over your desk the next day, spooning globs of extra-crunchy peanut butter on top to mask the feeling of wet boogers on your tongue. Fart all morning. Take a massive shit by 3:00 p.m.


Lonely Planet Pocket San Francisco by Lonely Planet, Alison Bing

Albert Einstein, back-to-the-land, Bay Area Rapid Transit, bike sharing, Blue Bottle Coffee, Burning Man, Chuck Templeton: OpenTable:, Day of the Dead, edge city, G4S, game design, Golden Gate Park, Haight Ashbury, Larry Ellison, machine readable, Mason jar, messenger bag, off-the-grid, San Francisco homelessness, Silicon Valley, stealth mode startup, Stewart Brand, transcontinental railway, Zipcar

(www.baragricole.com; 355 11th St; 6-10pm Sun-Wed, to late Thu-Sat, brunch 11am-2pm Sun; Folsom St, Van Ness) Bar Agricole THOMAS WINZ/LONELY PLANET IMAGES © 24 Bloodhound Bar Offline map Google map The murder of crows painted on the ceiling is definitely an omen: nights at Bloodhound assume mythic proportions with top-shelf booze served in Mason jars and pool marathons under a Viking deer-antler chandelier. SF’s best food trucks often park out front; ask the barkeep to suggest a pairing. (www.bloodhoundsf.com; 1145 Folsom St; 4pm-2am; Folsom St, Van Ness) 25 RN74 Wine Bar Offline map Google map Wine collectors and encyclopedia authors must envy the Rajat Parr–designed wine menu at RN74, a definitive volume that covers obscure Italian and Austrian entries, long-lost French vintages, and California’s most thorough account of cult wines.

On any given night, SF’s creative contingent pack the place to celebrate an art opening, dance show or fashion launch – and when Iggy Pop or David Bowie hits the jukebox, watch out. (2301 Folsom St; 5pm-1am; 18th St, 16th St Mission) 22 Heart Wine Bar Offline map Google map Friendly, arty, gourmet – this wine bar is all Heart. Check the website for Kitchenette’s pop-up nights, serving five-star organic, seasonal meals (share plates $4 to $12). Heart’s pinot noir is entirely too good for dribbly Mason jars, but the wine menu descriptions are ingenious: one malbec is ‘for kids who ate dirt’ and a French white shows ‘more soul than Marvin Gaye.’ (www.heartsf.com; 1270 Valencia St; 5pm-11pm Sun, Mon & Wed, to midnight Thu-Sat; 24th St Mission) 23 Lexington Club Lesbian Bar Offline map Google map Also known as the Hex, because the odds are eerily high that you’ll develop a crush on your girlfriend’s ex-girlfriend here over $4 beer, pool marathons, pinball and tattoo comparisons.

Speakeasies Smuggler’s Cove (Click here ) Behind tinted doors lurks a triple-decker pirate shipwreck, with 70 historically researched cocktails and 200 rums. Bourbon & Branch (Click here ) Prohibition- perfect cocktails in a secret backroom library bar. Wine Bars RN74 (Click here ) The best list in town, and possibly the west coast – plus a Michael Mina–designed bar menu. Heart (Click here ) Wine in Mason jars, inspired small plates and warm welcomes. All Heart. Two Sisters Bar & Books (Click here ) A bookish beauty with bargain happy hours. Cafes Caffe Trieste (Click here ) The soul of North Beach: poets, directors, accordion jams and espresso. Ritual Coffee Roasters (Click here ) Cultish coffee roasted onsite and prepared by expert baristas.


Chasing Slow: Courage to Journey Off the Beaten Path by Erin Loechner

clean water, fear of failure, glass ceiling, Kickstarter, Kintsugi, late fees, Mason jar, off-the-grid, Ralph Waldo Emerson

Lavender oils, lavender lotions, lavender candles. Whatever the medium, the scent sends you straight to relaxation station. I like to keep a few spritz bottles around my home to keep our spirits fresh and light. Fig+Yarrow’s varieties are some of the best (figandyarrow.com). Mason Jars. Of course you’re not surprised. Mason jars are a staple in my home for storing dry foods (nuts, beans, grains, etc.) in the pantry and also for housing homemade beauty concoctions like organic body oil and sunscreen. My suggestion: The uniformity makes for a lovely, functional display in the kitchen. Go on, leave your food out on the counter!

I rearrange my thrift-store vases roughly thirty-four times, and I spend an inordinate amount of my Saturday afternoon sorting my black paperclips from the white paperclips, carefully funneling them into separate porcelain dishes molded to look like tiny hands. I decant boxes of bowtie pasta, white beans, and linguine into mason jars to display in my kitchen. I reposition my artwork to freshen up the living room, and I re-cover my pillowcases with scarves inherited from my grandmother. I spend the forthcoming night making our very real home look decidedly unreal, and I do it for the sake of the photos, in the name of inspiration.

FIVE METHODS OF DECLUTTERING YOUR HOME 001. The William Morris Method. William Morris, a famed English architect, once established a golden rule for homekeeping everywhere: “Have nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful.” With this rule, you get to keep the mason jars (useful), the table lamp (beautiful), your grandmother’s sewing scissors (useful and beautiful). With this rule, to your husband’s detriment, you do not get to keep the 412 miniature, half-used bottles of hotel shampoo under the guest room bed. (Of note: Why no conditioner? Where has the tiny conditioner gone?)


pages: 195 words: 39,959

The Paleo Kitchen: Finding Primal Joy in Modern Cooking by Juli Bauer, George Bryant

Burning Man, Mason jar

Freeze your items as flat as possible. Keep them in flat, airtight containers, and you will be able to stack them more neatly. Get yourself a label maker or chalkboard labels so you can label and date all your bulk food containers. That way, you’ll never mix up your almond flour and coconut flour. Mason jars and airtight containers are great for storing nuts, spices, and even some of the Paleo flours. FOOD STORAGE TIPS REFRIGERATOR Apples Beans Berries Broccoli Cabbage Carrots Cauliflower Celery Cherries Cucumbers Eggplants Ginger Grapes Jalapenos Leafy greens Mushrooms Zucchini ROOM TEMPERATURE OR COOL PANTRY Apricots Avocados Bananas Citrus Garlic Kiwi Melons Nectarines Onions Peaches Pears Pineapples Plums Sweet potatoes Winter squash TAKE CARE OF YOUR PROTEINS We like to treat our meat like royalty.

Add the coconut oil, maple sugar, vanilla, and eggs and beat by hand or with an electric mixer until a dough has formed. 3. Dust the work surface with almond flour and lay the dough out, pressing down until it is about ½ inch (12 mm) thick. 4. Using a cookie cutter, cut the dough into 2½-inch (6-cm) circles. No cookie cutter? Use the lid to a spice jar or small mason jar. This should create around 40 small cookies. 5. Place 20 of the cookies on the prepared baking sheet about ½ inch (12 mm) apart and bake for 5 minutes. Immediately remove the cookies and place them on a rack to cool. Repeat with another batch of 20 or so cookies. 6. While the cookies cool, make the pumpkin butter.

Add the salt, allspice, cloves, mustard powder, cinnamon, and pepper and stir again. Cover and cook on low for 8 hours. 2. Once the ketchup is done, remove the lid and use an immersion blender to blend the ketchup until smooth. (If you don’t have an immersion blender, transfer the mixture in small batches to a blender to blend it.) Place the ketchup in mason jars or containers and let cool to room temperature before refrigerating. Store in the refrigerator for up to 4 weeks. Pistachio Pesto MAKES: 1 cup (240 ml) | PREP TIME: 5 minutes Ingredients 1 cup (125 grams) raw shelled pistachios 2 cloves garlic, roughly chopped 1 cup (25 grams) fresh basil leaves ½ to 1 cup (120 to 240 ml) extra virgin olive oil (see Note) 3 tablespoons freshly squeezed lemon juice pinch of fine-grain sea salt and freshly ground black pepper Process Place the pistachios in a food processor and pulse until they are broken down into small pieces.


pages: 281 words: 43,793

Paleo Eats: 111 Comforting Gluten-Free, Grain-Free and Dairy-Free Recipes for the Foodie in You by Kelly Bejelly

Mason jar

VARIATION: EGGS BENEDICT WITH POACHED EGGS To make poached eggs, bring 4 cups of water just to the point of boiling in a deep sauté pan or skillet. Reduce the heat to medium and add 1 teaspoon of apple cider vinegar. Using tongs, lower 4 small-mouth metal mason jar rings into the water. Working with one egg at a time, crack an egg into a small heatproof cup. Place the cup just above the surface of the hot water and slowly slide the egg into the center of a mason jar ring. This will help keep the egg whites from spreading out. Repeat with 3 more eggs. Turn off the heat and poach until the egg whites are cooked, approximately 4 minutes. Remove the eggs with a slotted spoon.

Cook on the high setting for 6 to 8 hours. The result will be a chunky-style sauce. If you want a smooth sauce, you can purée it in the slow cooker using an immersion blender or purée it in small batches in a regular blender. 3. This sauce will keep for a week in the refrigerator. You can also freeze it in freezer-safe wide-mouth mason jars and reheat as needed. Thai Almond Sauce This easy, no-cook sauce has an authentic Thai taste. You would never guess that it’s made with almond butter instead of the traditional peanut butter. It is thick, nutty, and rich with spices, and it makes a great dipping sauce for chicken, beef, or pork.


30 Days to a Clean and Organized House by Katie Berry

big-box store, Broken windows theory, clean water, Indoor air pollution, Mason jar

Now you can easily clean messes and replace the liner when needed. 4. Corral the clutter: Gather similar items in containers (e.g., oatmeal packets or envelopes of dressing mix). Don't let perfectionism get in the way here: while decorative organizing containers are nice to have, the important thing is actually getting organized. Use plastic sandwich bags, Mason jars, food storage containers, etc. You can always replace them with fancy canisters later -- for now, just get organized! 5. Group items to save time: First, group items by function: baking items (flour, baking soda, etc.) belong on the same shelf together so you can find recipe ingredients easily.

Donate items that you haven't worn in over a year to charity. Do the same with items that no longer fit (or create a fourth box marked STORE and fill it). • Move it: It’s common for things to wind up in our dresser that have no business there. Those spare buttons some clothing manufacturers include with garments are best kept in a Mason jar or pretty container. Receipts should be filed in your home office. Whatever is in your dresser that doesn’t belong there goes into the RETURN box. 3. Wipe it: Wipe the empty drawer with a damp microfiber cloth to remove any dust and debris. 4. Fold it: Neatly fold items before returning them to the drawer.


pages: 370 words: 60,067

The Autoimmune Paleo Cookbook & Action Plan: A Practical Guide to Easing Your Autoimmune Disease Symptoms With Nourishing Food by Michelle Anderson

Community Supported Agriculture, Mason jar

This includes your own hands, the jars and lids, and the pot you boil the water and salt in for the brine. The cucumbers should also be blemish-free, with no soft or discolored spots, to create safe and deliciously crisp pickles. 20 to 24 (4-inch) pickling cucumbers 4 garlic cloves, smashed 4 bay leaves 3 cups filtered water, plus more as needed ¼ cup sea salt 1. Sterilize two 1-quart mason jars and their lids by dipping them in boiling water using tongs. Carefully set aside. Thoroughly wash everything you will be using. 2. Pack the jars halfway full with the cucumbers, then add 1 garlic clove and 1 bay leaf to each jar. Press down firmly. 3. Pack the remaining cucumbers in the jars and add 1 garlic clove and 1 bay leaf to the top of each jar.

This process has been used for centuries to preserve food and requires only vegetables such as cabbage, plus salt and water. Fermentation produces beneficial probiotic bacteria that assist in the digestive process and promote gut health. 2 heads green cabbage, finely shredded (set aside about 8 large outer leaves) ¼ cup sea salt 1. Sterilize three or four 1-quart mason jars and their lids by dipping them in boiling water using tongs. Carefully set aside. Thoroughly wash everything you will be using. 2. Place the shredded cabbage in a very large bowl, layering it with the salt. 3. Massage and scrunch the cabbage with your hands until liquid starts to purge out, and the cabbage becomes limp and watery, about 10 minutes. 4.

Pack the cabbage into the clean jars and pour any leftover liquid in the bowl into the jars. 5. Cover the cabbage in the jars with the reserved leaves so that the shredded vegetable stays submerged in the liquid. 6. Place a small jelly jar filled with clean rocks or marbles on the leaves in the tops of the mason jars to weigh down the sauerkraut. 7. Cover the mouth of each jar with a square of fine mesh cheesecloth secured with a rubber band (leave off the jar lids). Place the jars in a cool, dark place. 8. For the first 24 hours, press down every few hours on the jelly jars to release more liquid. 9. After 24 hours there should be enough liquid to cover the sauerkraut, so you don’t need to press it down any longer. 10.


pages: 246 words: 70,404

Come and Take It: The Gun Printer's Guide to Thinking Free by Cody Wilson

3D printing, 4chan, Aaron Swartz, active measures, Airbnb, airport security, Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic, assortative mating, bitcoin, Chelsea Manning, Cody Wilson, digital rights, disintermediation, DIY culture, Evgeny Morozov, fiat currency, Google Glasses, gun show loophole, jimmy wales, lifelogging, Mason jar, means of production, Menlo Park, Minecraft, national security letter, New Urbanism, peer-to-peer, Peter Thiel, printed gun, Richard Stallman, ride hailing / ride sharing, Skype, Streisand effect, thinkpad, WikiLeaks, working poor

It took me a few hours to really get the feel for it.” I was pointing to the sauce pan and jar now. “I pour more than one cup of acetone into a mason jar, placing that mason jar in a sauce pan half filled with water. I heat the pan over a propane or gasoline camp stove, being careful in how I administer the flow of gas. The water in the pan is gently heated to a boil, which in turn brings the acetone to a boil as well. Once I see vapor, I cradle the barrel in my gloved hands and bring it over the opening of the mason jar. But this is not enough for the vapor to act on the barrel’s bore.” I went on. “I allow one end to be worked on by the vapor for twenty or so seconds, then remove the barrel, turn it the other direction, and allow the vapor to work through the bore from the other end.


Not That Kind of Girl: A Young Woman Tells You What She's "Learned" by Lena Dunham

book scanning, David Sedaris, Joan Didion, Mason jar, Saturday Night Live, sexual politics, zero-sum game

I liked the glimpse it gave me into my partner’s subconscious, which was maybe the only time I actually believed anyone besides me even existed. I liked the part where I got the sense that someone else could, maybe even did, desire me. But sex itself was a mystery. Nothing quite fit. Intercourse felt, often, like shoving a loofah into a Mason jar. And I could never sleep afterward. If we parted ways, my mind was buzzing and I couldn’t get clean. If we slept in the same bed, my legs cramped and I stared at the wall. How could I sleep when the person beside me had firsthand knowledge of my mucous membranes? Junior year of college, I found a solution to this problem: platonic bed sharing, the act of welcoming a person you’re attracted to into your bed for a night that contains everything but sex.

He built shelves, wrote scripts, and dressed for the cold weather with a rigor and discipline that, while initially intriguing, came to feel like living under a Communist regime. Rules, rules, rules: no mixing navy and black, no stacking books horizontally, pour your beverage into a twenty-ounce Mason jar, and make sure something big happens on this page. 5 This is a reference to when I told him that, as a child, I was hypnotized by my own beauty. This was the time in life before I learned it wasn’t considered appropriate by society at large to like yourself. 6 Although he worked a job that involved heavy lifting and hard labor, his true passion was writing fiction, and after much cajoling on my part he gave me one of his stories to read.

“I can’t do this anymore,” I say, and crumple against the window. He sits in the driver’s seat of his green jeep, wondering what I’m so upset about while I cry behind my sunglasses. We park in silence, and he leads me back to his apartment like I’m a little kid in trouble. We shut the door, and he fills a Mason jar with water and tells me I’m the only person who has ever mattered to him. He says he knows I feel the same way, his face contorted in the only display of emotion I’ve seen since we met. Finally, after three more attempts at ending it—at the beach, on the phone, via email—I sit with my friend Merritt at a sidewalk café in Park Slope.


pages: 104 words: 34,784

The Trouble With Brunch: Work, Class and the Pursuit of Leisure by Shawn Micallef

big-box store, call centre, cognitive dissonance, David Brooks, deindustrialization, gentrification, ghettoisation, Jane Jacobs, Joan Didion, knowledge worker, liberation theology, Mason jar, McMansion, new economy, post scarcity, Prenzlauer Berg, public intellectual, Richard Florida, Ronald Reagan, The Theory of the Leisure Class by Thorstein Veblen, Thorstein Veblen, urban sprawl, World Values Survey

Non-conformists, all of them, like their non-conformist cousins in Toronto and elsewhere. Directly in front of the small restaurant itself was a row of five or six pink wooden patio tables and chairs with a handful of people sitting down at them, arms folded to ward off the cool May air. In the middle of each table, as at so many brunch places around the world, a Mason jar had been repurposed to hold cut roses. We made our way past this human tableau to the front door and did the apprehensive ‘We’re-not-cutting-we’re-just-checking’ door opening where we were met by a fashionable and frowning hostess who sighed and, looking at the non-line, said, in English, it would be a while before something inside was available, but we could sit outside immediately if we wanted to, so we did.

Beloved, once-working-class urban areas like Toronto’s Kensington Market, New York’s Lower East Side and Williamsburg, or London’s Hackney have been transformed into places that maintain the general aesthetic of their working-class roots but perform a much more complicated role in the lifestyle of middle-class people. There’s a reason so many brunch places have such a distinctly rough-edged aesthetic: plain wooden chairs, worn wood reclaimed from barns, the substantial bill for the experience tucked into an old mason jar: they are all artifacts of the real. They lend an experience that’s highly performative, artificial and under a utilitarian sheen of authenticity. They say, This is a real experience, connected and rooted, not concocted. Physicality is important; it provides connections to people who did things and to actual objects that age and alter.


pages: 122 words: 36,274

Grow Green: Tips and Advice for Gardening With Intention by Jen Chillingsworth

carbon footprint, clean water, food miles, Indoor air pollution, Kickstarter, Mason jar

From specialist germinators to clay and terracotta tower sprouters, these will all help you grow and produce more efficiently. You can also find reusable organic hemp bags for growing sprouts, which you dip in water and hang to drain. However, it’s simple to sprout seeds using what you already have at home. EQUIPMENT » A large clear glass jar (Mason jar or reuse a glass jar from the kitchen such as an instant coffee, pasta sauce or nut butter jar) » A piece of cheesecloth (muslin), organic and unbleached (cut to cover and overhang the size of your jar) or a clean, dry tea towel (dish towel) » Rubber band » Spoon » A bowl to help the jar stand upside down at an angle SEEDS Only use seeds that have been specifically produced for home sprouting as they will have a high germination rate and are subject to strict controls.

You’ll notice the pit has several lines running along it and one small hole at the bottom. This hole is where the root will come from. Stick three toothpicks into the top part at a 45-degree angle, evenly spacing them out and avoiding the lines that run around the pit. Use an old jam (jelly) jar or Mason jar and sit the avocado pit in the jar, top side facing upwards. Fill the jar with clean water. The bottom of the avocado should sit in the water, with the top suspended out of the water with help from the toothpicks. Place the jar in a sunny spot. Top up the jar with water as needed or use fresh water if discolouration occurs.


Cast-Iron Cooking with Sisters on the Fly by Irene Rawlings

California gold rush, Mason jar, Maui Hawaii

The Sisters love inventing cocktails and improving on cocktails they’ve enjoyed in swank nightclubs or gritty roadhouses—the kind with great music. They make cilantro martinis. They infuse vodka with black tea or jalape ños. They make cocktails that will knock your socks off, and light thirst-quenchers for a hot summer day—frothy, refreshing, tall or short, served in sterling silver or in a mason jar. The Sisters also take on the eternal challenge of what to do with leftover lemonade. The recipes in this chapter are perfect for a hot summer day or to take the chill off an autumn evening. BEER-BERRY SISTA-RITA This cool drink is very refreshing after a long day on the river. Deb Shaffer-Gaskill (Sister #2017) shares her recipe.

Serves 6 1 (12-ounce) can frozen limeade concentrate 3 (12-ounce) long-necked beers 8 ounces tequila Juice of 2 fresh limes 2 cups berry-flavored soda pop (Mountain Dew Code Red, Berry Sprite, or Berry 7-Up) Fresh berries, for garnish (optional) Mint sprigs, for garnish (optional) In a large glass pitcher, mix together the limeade concentrate, beer, tequila, fresh lime juice, and soda pop. Serve in Mason jars, either poured over ice cubes or blended in a blender with crushed ice. Garnish with fresh berries or mint. HAWAIIAN LAVA FLOW When you’re dreaming about Hawaii, sometimes only an umbrella drink will do. Robin Caraway (Sister #1078) and her mom, Joan Eaton (Sister #1079), developed this tropical recipe.


pages: 138 words: 40,496

Mind Over Clutter by Nicola Lewis

do what you love, high net worth, Mason jar, microplastics / micro fibres, TED Talk

Stand the toilet rolls upright in a shoebox, then use each one to house a cable, keeping them neat and separate. 7. REUSE CANDLE JARS Once you’ve got rid of any remaining wax, these make great storage containers for your bathroom necessities or make-up brushes. You can even use them as mini vases on your bedside table. 8. REUSE MASON JARS These are great for packed lunches. Make layered salads or keep fruit in them. You could also use them for breakfast parfaits. 9. DON’T THROW AWAY EGG CARTONS Use these to grow your own herb garden. 10. KEEP OLD LIGHTBULBS These can be turned into Christmas ornaments; painting and decorating them can also be a fun family activity. 5: Decluttering to Go: Planning a Clutter-free Holiday There are few things I love more than planning a holiday and I’ve been known to start getting organised two months before even hitting the terminal.

aluminium cans 144 autumn-scented cleaner 128–9 babies see children bags: beach 177 buggy 180 children’s essential 179 children’s rucksack 180 grown-ups’ 178 hand luggage 176, 177, 178, 179 loose paper 143 plastic-bag samosas 149–50 sandwich 144 shopping 143 suitcases 171–2, 173, 174, 175, 176, 177, 178, 182, 183, 184 toiletry 66, 67, 174, 175–6 weighing luggage 184 bathroom, declutter your 64–72, 114, 121, 125, 128, 156, 164, 176, 179 cleaning 71 clear containers and 66 essential oils and 72 getting started 65 hoarding and 69 make-up 67–8 medicine cupboard 69–70 mood, creating the right 71 spray 127 storage solutions 65–6, 68 to-do list 72 bed, making 33, 35, 42, 44–5, 55 bedroom, declutter your 43–64, 148, 160 bedside table 46–7 children’s 55–64 drawers 47, 48, 50, 52, 55, 59 dividers 47 every day 44–5 every week 45 getting started 44 hangers 51 linen spray, DIY 45 shoes 53–4 step by step 49–50 storage 46, 51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 59–61 time and 52 to-do list 55 wardrobes 48–53 ‘best’, saving things for 26–7 bicarbonate of soda 121, 123–4, 127, 131, 132, 135–6, 139, 143 books: donating 154 storage 87, 88, 89 buggies 180 candle jars 71, 82, 149, 164 cardboard boxes 76, 109, 151 carpet and fabric cleaner 127–8 CDs/DVDs 87, 88–9 charities, sourcing local 162 children: bedrooms 55–64 cleaning products and 140–1 holidays and 178–81 china and glass 79 cleaning products: essential oils as 125–6, 128, 142 homemade 126–35, 142 natural 118–19 old-fashioned 121–5 rubber gloves and 125 10 ways to clean and shop green 142–4 VOCs (volatile organic compounds) and 119, 120 clothes and shoes, donating 155 clothes hangers 51, 151 clutter see decluttering coffee: cups, reusable 143 stains 137 computer: decluttering 98 donating 157 control, take back 6–7, 25–6 cosy, make it 87 cupboards: bathroom 65, 66, 67, 69–70, 71, 72 bedroom 50, 55, 57 checking 34, 55 kitchen 73, 74, 75, 76–80, 83 linen and towels 102, 103, 161 under-stairs 92 cutlery 81–2, 144 decluttering: clutter defined 18 getting started 23–5 mental health and 18–20, 30–2 positive impact of 30–2 power of 20–1 see also individual area of decluttering depression 19, 20, 30–2 discarding 34 disheartened, don’t be 25 dishwasher cleaner 131–2 dividers 47, 80, 82, 148 donating 153–65 books 154 charities, sourcing local 162 clothes and shoes 155 computers 157 food 159 furniture 158–9 linen and towels 161 make-up 156–7 mobile phones 158 spectacles 161–2 tools 160–1 toys 159–60 underwear 155–6 see also upcycling drawers 34, 41 bathroom 65, 66, 67, 68 bedroom 44, 46–7, 48, 50, 52, 55, 56, 57, 59 kitchen 73, 75, 80–2, 84, 85, 86 laundry 101 study 96 eco-cleaning your home 115–44 baby- and child-friendly, keeping your home 140–1 cleaning products 118–33 see also cleaning products odours 135–6, 139 pets 137–9 stain removal 136–7 10 ways to clean and shop green 142–4 troubleshooting 134 tumble-dryer fragrance 133 upholstery 135 vacuum deodoriser 133 egg cartons 165 emails 95, 98, 99 entrance room/hall 105–7 getting started 105–6 storage 107 to-do list 107 essential oils 10, 45, 48, 72, 106, 184 cleaning with 125–34, 141, 142 floor cleaner, child-friendly 141 food: containers, plastic 78, 148 cupboards 76–7 donating 159 packaging 143 furniture: donating 158–9 protecting 139 garage/garden shed 108–11 fire extinguisher 110 getting started 109 storage 109–10 to-do list 111 gift boxes, designer 152 happy and feel good, 10 ways to be 11–13 help, asking for 21–3 holidays 167–85 babies and kids 178–81 golden rule 171 hand luggage 176, 177, 178, 179 list, make a 170 organised, get 171–2 packing 173–4, 183, 184, 185 return home from 182 suitcases 172, 184 10 ways to prep and pack 183–5 toiletry bag 174, 175–6 toys 181 travel documents 177 Instagram 7, 9, 10, 19, 29 inventory, room 34 kettle cleaner 130–1 kitchen, declutter your 73–86, 91, 113 cleaning 117–18, 121, 122, 124, 125, 128, 132, 134, 137, 140 cupboards 76–80 dividing into zones 74 drawers 80–2 fridge 84–5 getting started 73 step by step 74 storage 75–83 sink 83, 84 to-do list 85–6 laundry/utility room, declutter your 100–5 avoiding laundry breakdowns 101–2 getting started 100 linen and towels 102–3 socks, missing and odd 101 storage 101, 104 to-do list 104–5 leather and wood cleaner 130 Lewis, Nicola: journey 1–8 mission 10 passions 8–10 life coach 28–30 lightbulbs 165 linen and towels 102–4, 161 lists, making 170–1 living space, declutter your 86–93 getting started 86–7 make it cosy 87 play areas 90 slime 91 storage 87–9 to-do list 93 under-stairs space 92–3 magazines 89 make-up: bathroom and 67–8 candle jars and 149, 164 donating 156–7 holidays and 174, 175–6 stain removal 136 mason jars 164 medicine cupboard 69–70 memo/vision boards 97, 99 ‘me’ time 35 Meadows, Mary 29 mental health 18–20, 29, 30–2, 159 mobile phones 158 mugs and cups 79 multi-purpose cleaner 128 music, relaxing 35 natural products 118–19 odours 54, 122, 124, 132, 134, 135–6, 139 one step at a time 24, 49–50 oven cleaner 131 packing: cubes 172, 174, 182, 183 holiday 171, 172, 173–4, 175, 177, 178, 180, 182, 183, 184, 185 lists 182, 183 paperwork 18, 43, 94, 95–6, 97, 99, 108, 151 pets 137–9 planning the week ahead 33 plastic 10, 46, 51, 52, 65, 70, 78, 82, 85, 118, 138, 143 bags 52, 65, 148, 149–50, 174, 176 bottles 118, 144, 152, 176 food containers 148 straws and cutlery 144 wrapping 144 play areas 90 podcasts 19, 35 pots and pans 80 putting things away 35 rewards 35, 114 room by room, declutter 37–114 rucksack, children’s 180 samosas, plastic-bag 149–50 sandwich bags, reusable 144 shirts, old 164 shopping bags 143 sleep 31–2 slime 91 small, achievable tasks first 28, 35 snacks 180, 181, 185 socks 29, 101, 102, 105 spectacles 161–2 spices and herbs 77–8 stain removal 136–7 started, getting 23–4 steam mops 141 storage: bathroom 65–6, 68 bedroom 46, 59 entrance room/hall 107 garage/shed 109–10, 111 kitchen 75–83 laundry/utility rooms 101, 104, 105 living space 87–90, 92, 93 store things well 113 study/home office 95, 97 study/home office, declutter your 93–9 computer 98 emails 98, 99 getting started 94–5 memo/vision boards 97 paperwork 95–6 storage 95, 97 to-do list 99 This Girl Can Organise, founding of 7 Thomas, Fiona 30–2 tidy and calm you, 10 ways to a 33–5 tin cans 150–1 toilet rolls 164 toiletry bag 66, 67, 174, 175–6 tools 160–1 toys 43, 55, 57, 58, 59, 64, 73, 90, 108, 139, 180, 181 donating 159–60 holidays and 185 travel documents 177, 178 tumble-dryer fragrance 133 under-stairs space 92–3 underwear 155–6 upcycling 148–53, 164 cardboard boxes 151 clothes hangers 151 designer gift boxes 152 old glass candle jars 149 plastic-bag samosas 149–50 plastic food containers 148 10 ways to upcycle 163–5 tin cans 150–1 washing-capsule containers 153 water bottles 152–3 upholstery 135 vacuum deodoriser 133 VOCs (volatile organic compounds) 119, 120 wardrobes: bedroom 48–51 hangers 51, 151 kids’ 62–3 moths and 52 shoes and 53–4 washing-capsule containers 153 washing-machine cleaner 132–3 water bottles 144, 152–3 wellies 164 window and mirror cleaner 129 wobbly days 27 About the Publisher Australia HarperCollins Publishers (Australia) Pty.


pages: 500 words: 145,005

Misbehaving: The Making of Behavioral Economics by Richard H. Thaler

3Com Palm IPO, Alan Greenspan, Albert Einstein, Alvin Roth, Amazon Mechanical Turk, Andrei Shleifer, Apple's 1984 Super Bowl advert, Atul Gawande, behavioural economics, Berlin Wall, Bernie Madoff, Black-Scholes formula, book value, business cycle, capital asset pricing model, Cass Sunstein, Checklist Manifesto, choice architecture, clean water, cognitive dissonance, conceptual framework, constrained optimization, Daniel Kahneman / Amos Tversky, delayed gratification, diversification, diversified portfolio, Edward Glaeser, endowment effect, equity premium, equity risk premium, Eugene Fama: efficient market hypothesis, experimental economics, Fall of the Berlin Wall, George Akerlof, hindsight bias, Home mortgage interest deduction, impulse control, index fund, information asymmetry, invisible hand, Jean Tirole, John Nash: game theory, John von Neumann, Kenneth Arrow, Kickstarter, late fees, law of one price, libertarian paternalism, Long Term Capital Management, loss aversion, low interest rates, market clearing, Mason jar, mental accounting, meta-analysis, money market fund, More Guns, Less Crime, mortgage debt, Myron Scholes, Nash equilibrium, Nate Silver, New Journalism, nudge unit, PalmPilot, Paul Samuelson, payday loans, Ponzi scheme, Post-Keynesian economics, presumed consent, pre–internet, principal–agent problem, prisoner's dilemma, profit maximization, random walk, randomized controlled trial, Richard Thaler, risk free rate, Robert Shiller, Robert Solow, Ronald Coase, Silicon Valley, South Sea Bubble, Stanford marshmallow experiment, statistical model, Steve Jobs, sunk-cost fallacy, Supply of New York City Cabdrivers, systematic bias, technology bubble, The Chicago School, The Myth of the Rational Market, The Signal and the Noise by Nate Silver, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, Thomas Kuhn: the structure of scientific revolutions, transaction costs, ultimatum game, Vilfredo Pareto, Walter Mischel, zero-sum game

If you want to get people to do stuff, lotteries can be very effective motivation. 9 Buckets and Budgets In those interviews with families that I used to inform my thinking about how households manage their finances, we learned that many households, especially those on a tight budget, used explicit budgeting rules. For families that dealt mostly in cash (credit cards were just coming into use at this time in the late 1970s), many would often use some version of an envelope system. One envelope (or mason jar) for rent, another for food, another for utilities, and so forth. In many cases the particular method used was one they had learned from their parents. Organizations do something similar. Departments have budgets, and there are limits for specific categories within those budgets. The existence of budgets can violate another first principle of economics: money is fungible, meaning that it has no labels restricting what it can be spent on.

On average, if a family’s income goes up by $1,000 a year, their propensity to buy something other than regular grade gasoline increases by only 0.1%. So a family of Econs might decide to treat their car to one tank a year of mid-grade gas, and spend the rest of their windfall on things more valuable. Suppose instead a family of Humans has a gas budget, possibly kept in a mason jar in the kitchen. Like the Econ family, they will spend some of that money on taking more road trips, but they might also think, hey, gasoline is so cheap now I might as well buy the good stuff. That is exactly what Hastings and Shapiro found. The shift toward higher grades of gasoline was fourteen times greater than would be expected in a world in which money is treated as fungible.

If the long-expected trend of rising interest rates ever gets started, we may see people resume the habit of paying off their mortgage because refinancing will be less enticing at higher rates. Otherwise, home equity might remain a leaky bucket. Like most aspects of mental accounting, setting up non-fungible budgets is not entirely silly. Be it with mason jars, envelopes, or sophisticated financial apps, a household that makes a serious effort to create a financial plan will have an easier time living within its means. The same goes for businesses, large or small. But sometimes those budgets can lead to bad decision-making, such as deciding that the Great Recession is a good time to upgrade the kind of gasoline you put in your car. 10 At the Poker Table During my time at Cornell, a group of economics faculty members met periodically for a low-stakes poker game.


All About Asset Allocation, Second Edition by Richard Ferri

activist fund / activist shareholder / activist investor, Alan Greenspan, asset allocation, asset-backed security, barriers to entry, Bear Stearns, Bernie Madoff, Black Monday: stock market crash in 1987, book value, buy and hold, capital controls, commoditize, commodity trading advisor, correlation coefficient, currency risk, Daniel Kahneman / Amos Tversky, diversification, diversified portfolio, equity premium, equity risk premium, estate planning, financial independence, fixed income, full employment, high net worth, Home mortgage interest deduction, implied volatility, index fund, intangible asset, inverted yield curve, John Bogle, junk bonds, Long Term Capital Management, low interest rates, managed futures, Mason jar, money market fund, mortgage tax deduction, passive income, pattern recognition, random walk, Richard Thaler, risk free rate, risk tolerance, risk-adjusted returns, risk/return, Robert Shiller, selection bias, Sharpe ratio, stock buybacks, stocks for the long run, survivorship bias, too big to fail, transaction costs, Vanguard fund, yield curve

Planning for Investment Success 9 THE ASSETS IN ASSET ALLOCATION At its core, asset allocation is about dividing your wealth into different places to reduce the risk of a large loss. One hundred years ago, that may have meant your burying some cash in Mason jars around the barn in addition to hiding money in your mattress and the cookie jar. If your house went up in flames, at least the buried Mason jar money would survive. I am not advocating putting money in a mattress or in Mason jars as an asset allocation strategy. This book focuses on placing money in publicly available investments such as mutual funds and exchange-traded funds (ETFs), and how that fits in with other assets such as your home, other real estate, businesses, hard assets such as coins and art, restricted corporate stock and stock options, and any claim you have on employer pensions, Social Security, and an annuity income.


pages: 329 words: 100,162

Hype: How Scammers, Grifters, and Con Artists Are Taking Over the Internet―and Why We're Following by Gabrielle Bluestone

Adam Neumann (WeWork), Airbnb, Bellingcat, Bernie Madoff, Bernie Sanders, Big Tech, bitcoin, Black Lives Matter, Burning Man, cashless society, coronavirus, COVID-19, Donald Trump, driverless car, Elon Musk, fake it until you make it, financial thriller, forensic accounting, gig economy, global pandemic, growth hacking, high net worth, hockey-stick growth, hype cycle, Hyperloop, Kevin Roose, lock screen, lockdown, Lyft, Mark Zuckerberg, Masayoshi Son, Mason jar, Menlo Park, Multics, Naomi Klein, Netflix Prize, NetJets, Peter Thiel, placebo effect, post-truth, RFID, ride hailing / ride sharing, Russell Brand, Sand Hill Road, self-driving car, Silicon Valley, Snapchat, social distancing, SoftBank, Steve Jobs, tech billionaire, tech bro, TikTok, Tim Cook: Apple, Travis Kalanick, Uber and Lyft, uber lyft, unpaid internship, upwardly mobile, Vision Fund, WeWork

And, anyway, her previous efforts to sell $2,500 sponsored Instagram posts209 and $10,000 appearances hadn’t gained any apparent traction with advertisers.210 So she dressed the meet-and-greets up as traveling writing workshops, and sprinkled them with extras like Billy McFarland in an MFA program, offering her followers additional perks like personalized journals with handwritten notes inside, a “home-cooked salad,” and a “portable DIY wildflower garden to take home” (influencer-speak for a bouquet of flowers in a mason jar) in exchange for the $165 tickets. Just as McFarland had poured all his time into marketing, leaving him no time to actually plan and execute a large-scale event, Calloway had left herself very little time to plan her global tour and appeared to be relying on ticket sales to provide enough capital for her to pay for the next stop.

Methinks she just realized how pricey her scam was going to be and is now trying to widen those profit margins,” Donaldson continued on Twitter, estimating that Calloway had netted a gross profit of at least $15,000 with her ticket sales—a nice chunk of change, but nowhere near enough to stage the elaborate event she’d conjured up in her Instagram Stories.211 She had even been asking her followers if they would consider bringing their own food in exchange for her agreeing to spend an extra thirty minutes with them.212 It was an amusing saga to be sure, but Donaldson’s thread didn’t go mega-viral until mid-January, when she documented Calloway’s reaction to the delivery of a pallet of twelve hundred mason jars. The crates completely filled the influencer’s cramped studio apartment and appeared to imbue her with a burst of capitalistic fervor. “I AM GOING TO REARRANGE SOME FURNITURE AND LIVE IN ~THIS HALF~ OF MY APARTMENT BECAUSE IT TURNS OUT EVERYTHING COSTS MONEY AND EVEN THOUGH THE TOUR TICKETS ARE $165 EACH THEY HONESTLY SHOULD HAVE BEEN MORE EXPENSIVE BECAUSE THE STUFF I GOT YOU IS REALLY NICE AND I’M WORKING EVERY HOUR OF THE DAY ~PLUSSSS I THINK THE THINGS I HAVE TO TEACH ARE REALLY VALUABLE~ SO YEAH.

So she’s netting a gross profit of like $15k (more than my annual wage), so pardon me if I spend today feeling like hard work and talent are a tad pointless." Twitter, December 21, 2018, https://twitter.com/Ceilidhann/status/1076056280601636864. 212.Ibid. 213.Kayleigh Donaldson, "The Empty Mason Jar of the Influencer Economy: The Case of Caroline Calloway and Her Creativity Workshop Tour," Pajiba, January 18, 2019, https://www.pajiba.com/web_culture/the-case-of-caroline-calloway-and-her-creativity-workshop-tour.php. 214.Ibid. 215.Kaitlyn Tiffany, "‘Close Friends,’ for a Monthly Fee," The Atlantic, September 17, 2019, http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2019/09/close-friends-instagram-subscription-charge-influencers/598171/. 216.Caroline Calloway (@carolinecaloway), "I fucked up.


pages: 476 words: 148,895

Cooked: A Natural History of Transformation by Michael Pollan

biofilm, bioinformatics, Columbian Exchange, correlation does not imply causation, creative destruction, dematerialisation, Drosophila, energy security, Gary Taubes, Helicobacter pylori, Hernando de Soto, hygiene hypothesis, Kickstarter, Louis Pasteur, Mason jar, microbiome, off-the-grid, peak oil, pneumatic tube, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Steven Pinker, women in the workforce

No less an authority than Steinkraus had written that the safety record of fermented vegetables was very good even when “the foods are manufactured by people without training in microbiology or chemistry in unhygienic, contaminated environments.” (That would be me.) One USDA scientist went so far as to claim that there has never been a documented case of food-borne illness from eating fermented vegetables. Suitably reassured, I bought a case of quart-sized Mason jars at the hardware store. I did not sterilize them, just rinsed them out with some hot tap water. I also ordered online a 7.5-liter German sauerkraut crock. The perimeter of this ceramic crock has a deep circular well into which the lid fits; filling this moat with an inch or two of water creates an airlock that prevents oxygen from getting in while allowing the carbon dioxide emitted during fermentation to bubble out.

The saltiness of the brine is a matter of personal preference, but several of the sources I consulted recommended 5 percent, so I started with that. I dissolved the salt in a pot of hot water (roughly an ounce of salt for every three cups of water), to which I added various combinations of spices.* While the mixture cooled on the stovetop, I packed the vegetables into a Mason jar (usually with cloves of garlic, sometimes with sliced ginger as well) and then poured the brine over them. Katz had said the vegetables should be completely submerged, but invariably some insist on floating to the top, exposing themselves to oxygen—and the possibility of rot. I tried a variety of tricks to force them back underwater, including a saucer, some Ping-Pong balls, a plastic bag filled with pebbles, and some weighted grape leaves.

Fermentation had begun, which meant it was time to move the crock to a cooler location in the basement, so that it wouldn’t proceed too fast. So what was going on in there, deep within those thick brown ceramic walls? This sort of microbial cooking is invisible and gradual—not much drama to observe, apart from the occasional bubble or bulging of lids on the Mason jars. Yet there was a kind of drama unfolding in these containers, a microscaled drama I had set in motion simply by shredding and salting some dead plant parts. In doing so, I had created a very particular environment—an ecological niche that was in the process of being colonized by new life.


San Francisco by Lonely Planet

airport security, Albert Einstein, Apple II, back-to-the-land, banking crisis, Bay Area Rapid Transit, Burning Man, California gold rush, car-free, carbon footprint, centre right, Chuck Templeton: OpenTable:, David Brooks, David Sedaris, Day of the Dead, Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, G4S, game design, glass ceiling, Golden Gate Park, Haight Ashbury, Joan Didion, Larry Ellison, Loma Prieta earthquake, machine readable, Mason jar, messenger bag, New Urbanism, off-the-grid, retail therapy, San Francisco homelessness, Silicon Valley, South of Market, San Francisco, stealth mode startup, stem cell, Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, Stewart Brand, transcontinental railway, urban sprawl, Whole Earth Catalog, Zipcar

(Click here ) Contemporary Jewish Museum (Click here) SABRINA DALBESIO / LONELY PLANET IMAGES © Saloons Comstock Saloon Vintage Victorian watering hole with lantern lighting, strong drink and dainty bar bites. (Click here ) Elixir Serving spur-shaking cocktails since the Gold Rush – only now they’re organic. (Click here ) Homestead Front-parlor dive bar complete with stamped-tin ceiling, Boddington’s on tap and peanuts in the shell. (Click here ) Bloodhound Antler chandeliers, cocktails in Mason jars and a murder of crows on the ceiling. (Click here ) Rickhouse Bartenders in newsboy caps pour vicious punch bowls and whiskey straight from the barrel. (Click here ) Madrone Victorian art bar with an absinthe fountain and the ultimate saloon showdown: Michael Jackson versus Prince. (Click here ) Vista Points Coit Tower Up Greenwich St stairs, atop Telegraph Hill, inside the 1930s tower, and atop the viewing platform: 360-degree panoramas.

Before picking up their shakers at night, local bartenders spend days dusting off historic SF recipes. Gone are the mad-scientist’s mixology beakers of two years ago: today SF’s drink historians are judged by their absinthe fountains and displays of swizzle sticks from defunct ocean liners. Just don’t be surprised if your anachronistic cocktail comes served in a cordial glass, punch bowl or Mason jar, instead of a tumbler, highball or martini glass. All that authenticity-tripping over cocktails may sound self-conscious, but after enjoying strong pours at SF’s vintage saloons and speakeasies, consciousness is hardly an issue. Happy hour specials or well drinks run $6 to $7, and gourmet choices with premium hooch run $8 to $14.

Heart Bar Offline map Google map (www.heartsf.com; 1270 Valencia St; 5pm-11pm Sun, Mon & Wed, to midnight Thu-Sat; & 24th St Mission) Friendly, arty, gourmet: this wine bar is all Heart. Check the website to arrive when Kitchenette pop-up is serving five-star organic, seasonal meals (share plates $4 to $12) – that masala cauliflower panna cotta will have you licking the jam jar it came in (ahem). The pinot noir is entirely too good for dribbly Mason jars, but there’s no resisting the wine menu descriptions: one malbec is ‘for kids who ate dirt’ and a French white shows ‘more soul than Marvin Gaye.’ Homestead Bar Offline map Google map (2301 Folsom St; 5pm-1am; 18th St, 16th St Mission) Your friendly Victorian corner dive c 1893, complete with carved-wood bar, roast peanuts in the shell, cheap draft beer and Victorian tin-stamped ceiling.


San Francisco by Lonely Planet

airport security, Albert Einstein, Apple II, back-to-the-land, banking crisis, Bay Area Rapid Transit, Burning Man, California gold rush, car-free, carbon footprint, centre right, Chuck Templeton: OpenTable:, David Brooks, David Sedaris, Day of the Dead, Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, G4S, game design, glass ceiling, Golden Gate Park, Haight Ashbury, Joan Didion, Larry Ellison, Loma Prieta earthquake, machine readable, Mason jar, messenger bag, New Urbanism, off-the-grid, retail therapy, San Francisco homelessness, Silicon Valley, South of Market, San Francisco, stealth mode startup, stem cell, Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, Stewart Brand, transcontinental railway, urban sprawl, Whole Earth Catalog, Zipcar

(Click here ) Contemporary Jewish Museum (Click here) SABRINA DALBESIO / LONELY PLANET IMAGES © Saloons Comstock Saloon Vintage Victorian watering hole with lantern lighting, strong drink and dainty bar bites. (Click here ) Elixir Serving spur-shaking cocktails since the Gold Rush – only now they’re organic. (Click here ) Homestead Front-parlor dive bar complete with stamped-tin ceiling, Boddington’s on tap and peanuts in the shell. (Click here ) Bloodhound Antler chandeliers, cocktails in Mason jars and a murder of crows on the ceiling. (Click here ) Rickhouse Bartenders in newsboy caps pour vicious punch bowls and whiskey straight from the barrel. (Click here ) Madrone Victorian art bar with an absinthe fountain and the ultimate saloon showdown: Michael Jackson versus Prince. (Click here ) Vista Points Coit Tower Up Greenwich St stairs, atop Telegraph Hill, inside the 1930s tower, and atop the viewing platform: 360-degree panoramas.

Before picking up their shakers at night, local bartenders spend days dusting off historic SF recipes. Gone are the mad-scientist’s mixology beakers of two years ago: today SF’s drink historians are judged by their absinthe fountains and displays of swizzle sticks from defunct ocean liners. Just don’t be surprised if your anachronistic cocktail comes served in a cordial glass, punch bowl or Mason jar, instead of a tumbler, highball or martini glass. All that authenticity-tripping over cocktails may sound self-conscious, but after enjoying strong pours at SF’s vintage saloons and speakeasies, consciousness is hardly an issue. Happy hour specials or well drinks run $6 to $7, and gourmet choices with premium hooch run $8 to $14.

Heart Bar Offline map Google map (www.heartsf.com; 1270 Valencia St; 5pm-11pm Sun, Mon & Wed, to midnight Thu-Sat; & 24th St Mission) Friendly, arty, gourmet: this wine bar is all Heart. Check the website to arrive when Kitchenette pop-up is serving five-star organic, seasonal meals (share plates $4 to $12) – that masala cauliflower panna cotta will have you licking the jam jar it came in (ahem). The pinot noir is entirely too good for dribbly Mason jars, but there’s no resisting the wine menu descriptions: one malbec is ‘for kids who ate dirt’ and a French white shows ‘more soul than Marvin Gaye.’ Homestead Bar Offline map Google map (2301 Folsom St; 5pm-1am; 18th St, 16th St Mission) Your friendly Victorian corner dive c 1893, complete with carved-wood bar, roast peanuts in the shell, cheap draft beer and Victorian tin-stamped ceiling.


pages: 334 words: 102,899

That Will Never Work: The Birth of Netflix and the Amazing Life of an Idea by Marc Randolph

Airbnb, Apollo 13, crowdsourcing, digital rights, high net worth, inventory management, Isaac Newton, Jeff Bezos, late fees, loose coupling, Mason jar, pets.com, recommendation engine, rolodex, Sand Hill Road, Silicon Valley, Silicon Valley startup, Snapchat, Steve Jobs, subscription business, tech worker, The last Blockbuster video rental store is in Bend, Oregon, Travis Kalanick

Our invitation had specified “Ranch Formal” dress, without any details about what “Ranch Formal” actually was. Interpretation ranged from my lederhosen (don’t ask) to Reed’s tuxedo (nattily paired with a straw hat) to product manager Kate Arnold’s vintage red gingham dress. It was hot, it was loud, and the group was quickly feeling the effects of the open bar, which served cocktails in quart-sized mason jars. Boris had somehow convinced one of the bartenders to give him a bottle of ice-cold vodka, a tray, and dozens of shot glasses, and he was drunkenly wandering around the mess hall, solemnly asking everyone he encountered the same question: “Are you een?” This was remarkable in and of itself, because Boris rarely spoke.

I faintly recall seeing him asleep on a picnic table before dinner was even over.) Just as things were starting to get wonderfully out of hand, I decided that I would bring the whole group together in song. Pulling several folded pages out of my pocket, I clambered up onto one of the long benches and, wobbling slightly, banged a spoon on the regrettably empty mason jar that had once held my gin and tonic. The crowd quieted. Using the melody from “God Rest You Merry, Gentlemen,” I began: Come join me friends and raise a glass to toast our newfound luck. Each week from every member we now extract a buck. It seems Marquee was just the key To prove that we don’t suck!

Reed grabbed hold of the cable handrail and bounded up the stairs, then ducked through the doorway and vanished into the plane. I followed him up, not quite sure what to expect from a private jet. Gold-plated bathroom fixtures? A giant king-size bed? A stand-up bar? (This latter amenity was actually the last thing in the world I wanted to see, since I was still struggling with the aftereffects of the previous night’s mason jars.) The interior of the jet was surprisingly businesslike—if you consider a huge platter of breakfast pastries and sliced fruit, a thermos of coffee, and a pitcher of freshly squeezed orange juice perched on the counter of a jet “businesslike.” Bottles of water and soda were visible through the glass door of a half-size refrigerator.


pages: 220 words: 64,234

Fewer, Better Things: The Hidden Wisdom of Objects by Glenn Adamson

big-box store, Biosphere 2, blood diamond, blue-collar work, Buckminster Fuller, carbon footprint, Charles Babbage, crowdsourcing, dematerialisation, dumpster diving, fake news, Ford Model T, haute couture, informal economy, Jacquard loom, Joseph-Marie Jacquard, Kintsugi, Mason jar, post-truth, race to the bottom, tacit knowledge, TED Talk, trade route, VTOL, white flight

There was the family’s winter meat supply useless on the ground and getting ready to spoil. So my sister did the only thing she could. She got out the butcher’s knife and butchered the pig. She kindled a fire in the kitchen cook-stove. She skinned the hog and cut it into pot-sized chunks. She cooked it on the woodstove in the hot kitchen. She washed and sterilized twenty mason jars. She cut up and packed the meat in the jars. She cooked the meat jars in the pressure cooker. She flipped down the latches on the jars. She let the jars cool and moved them to the cyclone cellar. Then she washed up and went to bed. This was a thirteen-year-old! What is amazing is that this skill set was more or less expected of girls her age (though impressive enough, I guess, that my grandfather remembered the tale many years later).

The difference between my great-aunt Gail and today’s children has something to do with a rise in squeamishness, but it is mainly a decline in material intelligence. She grew up on a midwestern farm in the midst of the Great Depression. Although the family was impoverished, they had a deep connection to the material world. Homesteaders like them would have been intimately familiar not only with raw meat and mason jars, but with many different types of timber, stone, clay, straw, metals, and innumerable other materials, and many different processes for working with them. If they needed to build a fence, they wouldn’t go to Home Depot—they would cut down a tree and split it into posts. Every day they fed and milked cows.


pages: 44 words: 12,233

Simplify by Joshua Becker

Albert Einstein, Mason jar, white picket fence

I shared this story which originated with Stephen Covey: A university professor was addressing his new group of business students and, to drive home a point, used an illustration those students will never forget. As he stood in front of the group of high-powered overachievers he said, “Okay, time for a quiz.” He pulled out a one-gallon, mason jar and set it on the table in front of him. He also produced about a dozen fist-sized rocks and carefully placed them, one at a time, into the jar. When the jar was filled to the top and no more rocks would fit inside, he asked, “Is this jar full?” Everyone in the class yelled, “Yes.” The professor replied with a little smile, “Really?”


pages: 306 words: 71,100

Minimal: How to Simplify Your Life and Live Sustainably by Madeleine Olivia

Airbnb, An Inconvenient Truth, BIPOC, carbon footprint, clean water, climate anxiety, Extinction Rebellion, food desert, food miles, hustle culture, Mason jar, microplastics / micro fibres, Naomi Klein, ocean acidification

If you’re even slightly unsure about an item, put it in this pile. Step 4: Sort YES = ORGANISE Everything you said yes to can be put back where it belongs. This can give you an opportunity to do a bit of re-organising and neatening up. Colour-coordinate your wardrobe, fold things neatly, put dividers in your drawers, store things away in mason jars or containers, and make sense of all of the stuff you’re keeping. Find a home for everything. This process can be one of the most satisfying parts of minimising your space. If you’re keeping something and repurposing/fixing it, put this somewhere separately for you to be reminded to complete this project.

KITCHEN SWAP Paper towels Dish towels/cloths, reusable/compostable dish cloths Plastic containers/Tupperware Glass or aluminium jars and containers All–purpose waste bin Separate indoor compost bin, recycling bins and waste bin Plastic bin bags Compostable bin bags Disposable wipes/microfibre plastic cloths Reusable natural fibre cloths (you can make your own by cutting up an old cotton T–shirt) KITCHEN SWAP Plastic shopping bags Reusable shopping bags, cloth/mesh food produce bags Plastic food packaging Mason jars to store food in bulk Cling film/aluminium foil Reusable wax wrapping Plastic straws Reusable metal/glass/bamboo straws Plastic utensils Wooden or metal utensils KITCHEN SWAP Plastic sponges Reusable natural fibre cloths, biodegradable sponges, loofah, wooden brush, recycled plastic sponges Plastic cutting board Wooden cutting board Parchment paper Reusable silicone baking sheet Paper napkins Cloth napkins Bottled water Filtered tap water KITCHEN SWAP Tea bags (most have plastic in their packaging) and coffee pods Loose leaf tea with a tea strainer and ground coffee with cafetière or stovetop espresso maker/moka pot Paper cupcake baking cases Reusable silicone baking cases, silicone cupcake tray Paper/plastic plates, paper/plastic cutlery Reusable plates and cutlery Plastic bags Reusable silicone bags, reusable containers Teflon pans Cas-iron or stainles-steel pans BEDROOMS AND LIVING SPACES SWAP Synthetic bed sheets Cotton, bamboo or linen bedding (natural fibres) New furniture Vintage/secondhand/repurposed furniture Classic lightbulbs LED or energy saving lightbulbs Radiators on full Hot water bottle, radiators turned down low, draft excluders under doors Tissues Cloth handkerchief BEDROOMS AND LIVING SPACES SWAP Paraffin wax candles Soy/coconut/rapeseed wax candles Plug-in air freshener Reed diffuser and essential oils New CDs, DVDs, books, magazines Secondhand CDs, DVDs and books, online subscriptions, streaming services Cut flowers Potted plants Fabric conditioner White vinegar, essential oils Tumble dryer Drying rack/clothes horse/outdoor clothes line Minimalist Home Routines and Habits All the clutter around our homes can cause a visual distraction, making the space less enjoyable to be in.


pages: 252 words: 73,387

Mini Farming: Self-Sufficiency on 1/4 Acre by Brett L. Markham

active measures, classic study, clean water, Columbine, coronavirus, fixed income, Mason jar, place-making

This is easy to accomplish using moisture-indicating silica gel, small muslin bags like those used for spices, and mason jars with sealing tops. Moisture-indicating silica gel and the small muslin bags can be purchased from the Southern Exposure Seed Exchange. When dry, moisture-indicating silica gel is blue, and when damp it is pink. Once it becomes pink, put it on some aluminum foil on a pan in the oven on the lowest setting and gently heat it until it turns uniformly blue again. It can be reused indefinitely, so it’s a good investment. Place the seeds to be stored in a mason jar either within paper seed packets or not, because the seed packets pass moisture readily.


Simplicity at Home by Yumiko Sekine

Kintsugi, Mason jar

Wash the blossoms with plenty of water and drain in a colander. Lay the clean blossoms in between sheets of paper towels and press lightly to blot all the excess water. Carefully wash the leaves and blot them dry. Transfer the blossoms and leaves to a clean glass jar, a widemouthed 1 pt [480 ml] mason jar works well, and add the vinegar and salt. Press a clean, heavy object, such as a large rock, on top of the solids to weigh them down. Let the mixture sit overnight at room temperature. The next day, pour the contents into a colander and drain for 18 to 24 hours out of direct sunlight. The pickled cherry blossoms are now ready to use.


pages: 281 words: 83,974

The Secret Lives of Bats by Merlin Tuttle

Alfred Russel Wallace, data acquisition, Mason jar

Even at their brightest, these lamps were dim compared to today’s LED lights, but they were the best we had. After allowing our eyes to adjust to the yellowish glow of our lamps, we began to look around, first noticing a room the size of a small bedroom on our left. It was strewn with old moonshine still paraphernalia, broken Mason jars, and parts of wooden barrels. The ceiling was smoke-blackened from the distilling process. Far more concerned about finding bats, we would later regret having assumed that moonshine stills in Baloney Cave were limited to the far distant past. This was our first venture into a cave. My father led the way, as we stepped carefully around slick spots on an uneven floor, our hands often supporting us against the moist limestone walls.

We lit our carbide lamps and walked some 50 feet farther in, pretending to look for bats on the ceiling and walls while the man and his shotgun followed us several paces behind. Near the entrance, as we passed the side chamber, the edge of our light beams caught a motley collection of copper tubing, a small wood-burning stove, barrels, and Mason jars. Overwhelmed by the strong odor of fermentation, we quickly aimed our lights away and moved on. Without continuing far enough to find any bats, we turned around, ready to leave. The man behind us must have known we’d seen his still. Turning around to face him, my father said in a matter-of-fact tone, “Thanks for letting us look for bats in your cave.


pages: 315 words: 81,433

A Life Less Throwaway: The Lost Art of Buying for Life by Tara Button

behavioural economics, circular economy, clean water, collaborative consumption, David Attenborough, delayed gratification, Downton Abbey, Fairphone, gamification, Great Leap Forward, hedonic treadmill, Internet of things, Kickstarter, life extension, lock screen, Mark Zuckerberg, Mason jar, meta-analysis, period drama, planned obsolescence, Rana Plaza, retail therapy, Stanford marshmallow experiment, Steve Jobs, TED Talk, thinkpad

Commitment is highly linked to trust, and one of the reasons why we’re all so bad at committing nowadays is a lack of it. When it comes to buying, we know instinctively that we’re being manipulated and therefore we try to reduce the risk to ourselves by going for something cheap and easily replaceable. Which is the exact opposite of mindful curation. James Russell Lingerfelt, bestselling author of The Mason Jar, tells us that there are nine essential questions we should ask before committing to a person. I have pinched them (with his kind permission) and made them relevant to products instead. * * * exercise AN EXERCISE IN COMMITMENT The next time you’re about to buy something, use the following questions to help you decide whether to commit or not. 1.How well do I know them?

Gilbert, Elizabeth, Big Magic: Creative living beyond fear (Bloomsbury, 2016). Gladwell, Malcolm, Blink: The power of thinking without thinking (Little, Brown, 2005). Jackson, Tim, Prosperity without Growth: Economics for a finite planet (Earthscan, 2009). James, Oliver, Affluenza (Vermilion, 2007). Lingerfelt, James Russell, The Mason Jar (William and Keats, 2014). Lippincott, J. Gordon, Design for Business (Paul Theobald, 1947). Midler, Paul, Poorly Made in China: An insider’s account of the production game (John Wiley & Sons, 2009). Miller, Geoffrey, Must-Have: The hidden instincts behind everything we buy (Vintage, 2010). Moran, Caitlin, How to Be a Woman (Ebury Press, 2012).


pages: 522 words: 144,511

Sugar: A Bittersweet History by Elizabeth Abbott

addicted to oil, agricultural Revolution, Bartolomé de las Casas, British Empire, company town, cotton gin, death from overwork, flex fuel, Ford Model T, land tenure, liberation theology, Mason jar, Ralph Waldo Emerson, spinning jenny, strikebreaker, trade liberalization, trade route, transatlantic slave trade, women in the workforce, working poor

As food historian Waverley Root explains, “The rivalry between white and brown sugar provides a chapter in the history of snobbery.”591 As it became more affordable, white sugar also became a status symbol as people served it to guests and relegated brown sugar to the kitchen or for private use. As a measure of snobbery, sugar worked remarkably well, with molasses as its lowest form and refined white sugar its highest, and in between them, many grades of brown and coarser sugar. The 1858 invention of the Mason jar greatly increased the demand for white sugar. The Mason jar, a reusable, heavy glass container that could be tightly sealed, enabled women to preserve fruits and vegetables they could serve year-round. Because canning required white sugar rather than brown sugar or molasses, it, too, contributed to a large increase in the consumption of white sugar.

., 364 Lenzi, Philip, 49 Lewinsky, Monica, 385, 386 Lewis, Matthew, 84, 122, 136, 137, 138, 190, 198, 200, 202, 252 Liftin, Hilary, 400 Lili’uokalani, Queen of Hawaii, 337–39, 338 Lindt, Rudolphe, 363 Liverpool, 152–55 lobbying efforts, 170–78, 382–96 London Missionary Society, 224, 248 Long, Edward, 136, 137, 162, 221 Lorber, Daniel, 399 Louisiana: climate, 280–81; milling techniques, 282–83; plantations, 290; planters lifestyle, 291–92; racism in, 292, 299; slaves in, 283–88; sugarcane production in, 282–83; sugar culture, 290–91 Louisiana Purchase, 280, 349 Louisiana Sugar Planters Association, 300 Louis XIV, King of France, 56, 280 Louis XVI, King of France, 57, 144 Lubolo, Juan, 207, 208 Macao, 331 Macaulay, Thomas Babington, 270 Madison, Dolley, 50 Malaviya, Madan Mohan, 316 Malinche, 30–31 Malone, Ann Patton, 286 Mansfield, Lord, 221, 222 manufacturing, and slavery, 149–50, 151 Maria Theresa of Spain, 56 Maroons, 205–9, 228 marronage, 119, 194, 205–9 Marryat, Frederick, 50 Mars, Forrest, 364–65 Mars, Frank, 364–65 Martinique: British takeover, 177; duties on sugar, 177; planters, 127; slavery, 102, 107, 128, 134, 145, 179, 200; sugarcane cultivation, 83 Mary of Hungary, 42–43 Mason jars, 353 Masters and Servants Act, 343 Matthews, John, 351 Mauritius, 322–24 Mayhew, Henry, 358 McWilliams, James E., 352, 353, 376 medical concerns about sugar, 27, 53–54, 374, 399 Medici, Marie de’, 46 Mediterranean, 13, 18, 19 Meissen Royal Manufactory, 58 Melanesia, 341–44, 347 mercantilist policies, 177–78, 227 Mexico, 304–7, 308 middle classes, 46, 56, 60 Middle East, 12, 13 Middle Passage, 75–80, 111, 153, 197, 228, 236, 268 Middleton, Sir Charles, 230, 233 Middleton, Lady Margaret, 230 migrant workers, 327 milling techniques, 17, 282–83, 300, 347 mills, 19, 273–74, 301 Mintz, Sidney, 15, 16, 22, 67, 70, 81 missionaries, 224–25, 227, 261, 265, 266–68, 335, 342, 345 mixed-race children, 137, 143–47, 154, 190, 322 mixed-race unions, 128, 134–38, 143–47 molasses, 20, 70, 91, 150, 177, 283, 378 Montesino, Friar Antón, 33 Montesquieu, Charles-Louis de Secondat, 222, 223 Montserrat, 40, 172, 268 Moore, Catherine Maria, 162 Moore, Sir Henry, 162 More, Hannah, 230 Moret Law, 277 Moxham, Roy, 51 Mozambique, 327 M.S.


pages: 279 words: 90,278

Heartland: A Memoir of Working Hard and Being Broke in the Richest Country on Earth by Sarah Smarsh

call centre, financial independence, housing crisis, income inequality, invisible hand, late fees, Mason jar, mortgage debt, mortgage tax deduction, off-the-grid, offshore financial centre, Pepto Bismol, profit motive, Ronald Reagan, trickle-down economics, women in the workforce, working poor

Betty’s arms were wrapped around someone’s, maybe her sister’s. Shelly’s arms were wrapped around my waist. To keep from falling out of the boat, we shifted our centers with every turn. People pay for a version of that now. They pay for hayrack rides through pumpkin patches, a safe industry called “agritourism.” They go to bars that use Mason jars for glasses. They even throw expensive weddings in barns. Somehow, I got the real thing, increasingly rare in an urbanizing world. I would have passed all sorts of poverties to you. But some late night a tractor would have pulled you, well fed by what we grew, under a clear sky full of stars.

Sometimes I walked in to pet the tiny dog that slept next to her, guarding her, and I’d see that even in sleep Betty’s light eyebrows were furrowed and there was a frown on her mouth, which had finally begun to wrinkle as a smoker’s lips will do. She smelled of ash and mint—the cigarettes, her candy Red Hots that she kept in a Mason jar, the chalky pink candies from the dollar store that tasted like Pepto-Bismol, the strong odor of Icy Hot menthol ointment spread across her shoulders to distract her from the pain she felt there. Betty had been diagnosed with chronic fatigue syndrome, which some doctors said was all in her head and others said was real.


pages: 304 words: 22,886

Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth, and Happiness by Richard H. Thaler, Cass R. Sunstein

Al Roth, Albert Einstein, asset allocation, availability heuristic, behavioural economics, call centre, carbon tax, Cass Sunstein, choice architecture, continuous integration, currency risk, Daniel Kahneman / Amos Tversky, desegregation, diversification, diversified portfolio, do well by doing good, endowment effect, equity premium, feminist movement, financial engineering, fixed income, framing effect, full employment, George Akerlof, index fund, invisible hand, late fees, libertarian paternalism, loss aversion, low interest rates, machine readable, Mahatma Gandhi, Mason jar, medical malpractice, medical residency, mental accounting, meta-analysis, Milgram experiment, money market fund, pension reform, presumed consent, price discrimination, profit maximization, rent-seeking, Richard Thaler, Right to Buy, risk tolerance, Robert Shiller, Saturday Night Live, school choice, school vouchers, systems thinking, Tragedy of the Commons, transaction costs, Vanguard fund, Zipcar

The concept is beautifully illustrated by an exchange between the actors Gene Hackman and Dustin Hoffman in one of those extra features offered on DVDs. Hackman and Hoffman were friends back in their starving artist days, and Hackman tells the story of visiting Hoffman’s apartment and having his host ask him for a loan. Hackman agreed to the loan, but then they went into Hoffman’s kitchen, where several mason jars were lined up on the counter, each containing money. One jar was labeled “rent,” another “utilities,” and so forth. Hackman asked why, if Hoffman had so much money in jars, he could possibly need a loan, whereupon Hoffman pointed to the food jar, which was empty. According to economic theory (and simple logic), money is “fungible,” meaning that it doesn’t come with labels.

Similarly, people are far more likely to splurge impulsively on a big luxury purchase when they receive an unexpected windfall than with savings that they have accumulated over time, even if those savings are fully available to be spent. Mental accounting matters precisely because the accounts are treated as nonfungible. True, the mason jars used by Dustin Hoffman (and his parents’ generation) have largely disappeared. But many households continue to designate accounts for various uses: children’s education, vacations, retirement, and so forth. In many cases these are literally different accounts, as opposed to entries in a ledger.


Live Green: 52 Steps for a More Sustainable Life by Jen Chillingsworth

carbon footprint, clean water, food miles, Indoor air pollution, Mason jar, microplastics / micro fibres, smart meter

A dinner plate or side plate will often fit over the top of a bowl and cover leftovers. Although if you have kids going in and out of the fridge, this can be precarious! BUYING LOCAL Buying locally at farmers markets and farm shops means you’ll use less plastic packaging as most items are loose or unwrapped. Take your own containers to the butcher, fishmonger or deli. KILNER/MASON JARS Ideal for storing fruit and vegetables that have been partly used/cut. Pop a little water in the bottom of the jar and store chopped carrots, courgettes, peppers, kale and broccoli. Keep checking the water to make sure it isn’t going too brown and refresh when necessary. Glass jars with lids are particularly useful for keeping chopped or cut onions fresh.


pages: 131 words: 37,660

The Minimalist Way by Erica Layne

cognitive load, Inbox Zero, late fees, Mason jar, retail therapy, side hustle, Silicon Valley, Snapchat, solopreneur, TED Talk

Children’s pain reliever, double A batteries, three boxes of tissues to donate to our son’s preschool classroom. Those were fine, but what about the new hair product I’d throw in just because I’d seen someone talk about it on Instagram? Or how about the after-Easter clearance decorations I’d picked up? Sure, those cute polka-dotted mason jars were from the dollar section, but did I really even have a use for them? How could I expect my 4-year-old to know the difference between needs and wants—and to be judicious with our money—when I was barely practicing it myself? Most of my impulse buys went back that day, and that particular Target run became one of the guideposts on my path to a minimalist lifestyle.


pages: 359 words: 115,701

Educated by Tara Westover

Affordable Care Act / Obamacare, hiring and firing, Mason jar, obamacare, off-the-grid, Rosa Parks, white picket fence, Y2K

My family always spent the warm months bottling fruit for storage, which Dad said we’d need in the Days of Abomination. One evening, Dad was uneasy when he came in from the junkyard. He paced the kitchen during dinner, hardly touching a bite. We had to get everything in order, he said. There was little time. We spent the next day boiling and skinning peaches. By sundown we’d filled dozens of Mason jars, which were set out in perfect rows, still warm from the pressure cooker. Dad surveyed our work, counting the jars and muttering to himself, then he turned to Mother and said, “It’s not enough.” That night Dad called a family meeting, and we gathered around the kitchen table, because it was wide and long, and could seat all of us.

The mountain, I understood, was our ally. To those who knew her she could be kind, but to intruders she was pure treachery, and this would give us an advantage. Then again, if we were going to take cover on the mountain when the Feds came, I didn’t understand why we were canning all these peaches. We couldn’t haul a thousand heavy Mason jars up the peak. Or did we need the peaches so we could bunker down in the house, like the Weavers, and fight it out? Fighting it out seemed likely, especially a few days later when Dad came home with more than a dozen military-surplus rifles, mostly SKSs, their thin silver bayonets folded neatly under their barrels.


pages: 342 words: 115,769

Raising Cubby: A Father and Son's Adventures With Asperger's, Trains, Tractors, and High Explosives by John Elder Robison

Asperger Syndrome, centre right, intermodal, Mason jar, neurotypical, Oklahoma City bombing, pre–internet, sealed-bid auction, theory of mind

At one point, an explosives tech emerged from the basement in a panic. “Guys! We gotta get out of here! There’s a mason jar full of acetone peroxide ready to explode.” Everyone turned on Cubby in anger. “You lied to us!” the bomb tech shouted at him, and everyone ran out of the basement and backed away from the house, as if the whole thing was about to detonate. Cubby kept his cool. “There’s no jar of explosive down there,” he said calmly. As the cops got over their initial panic and the house remained standing, Cubby looked at their photo of the “jar of explosive.” It was a mason jar, but it wasn’t full of acetone peroxide. It contained a harmless mix of water and baking soda.


pages: 181 words: 44,220

Worms Eat My Garbage, 35th Anniversary Edition: How to Set Up and Maintain a Worm Composting System: Compost Food Waste, Produce Fertilizer for Houseplants and Garden, and Educate Your Kids and Family by Mary Appelhof, Joanne Olszewski

Drosophila, Mason jar

Once conditions are good, the pupa becomes a fly and the process begins again. There are many nontoxic traps commercially available to trap fruit flies. It's also very simple to make a homemade trap using common household items. Fruit flies are attracted to rotting and fermenting fruit. Put apple cider vinegar in a mason jar and add a few drops of liquid soap. The soap breaks the surface tension of the liquid causing the flies to fall in and drown. Don't put a lot of soap in or the smell can overpower the scent of vinegar, which is the smell that pulls them into the jar. Some people suggest adding pieces of rotting fruit to increase the smell.


pages: 1,104 words: 302,176

The Rise and Fall of American Growth: The U.S. Standard of Living Since the Civil War (The Princeton Economic History of the Western World) by Robert J. Gordon

3D printing, Affordable Care Act / Obamacare, airline deregulation, airport security, Apple II, barriers to entry, big-box store, blue-collar work, business cycle, Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty, carbon tax, Charles Lindbergh, classic study, clean water, collective bargaining, computer age, cotton gin, creative destruction, deindustrialization, Detroit bankruptcy, discovery of penicillin, Donner party, Downton Abbey, driverless car, Edward Glaeser, en.wikipedia.org, Erik Brynjolfsson, everywhere but in the productivity statistics, feminist movement, financial innovation, food desert, Ford Model T, full employment, general purpose technology, George Akerlof, germ theory of disease, glass ceiling, Glass-Steagall Act, Golden age of television, government statistician, Great Leap Forward, high net worth, housing crisis, Ida Tarbell, immigration reform, impulse control, income inequality, income per capita, indoor plumbing, industrial robot, inflight wifi, interchangeable parts, invention of agriculture, invention of air conditioning, invention of the sewing machine, invention of the telegraph, invention of the telephone, inventory management, James Watt: steam engine, Jeff Bezos, jitney, job automation, John Markoff, John Maynard Keynes: Economic Possibilities for our Grandchildren, labor-force participation, Les Trente Glorieuses, Lewis Mumford, Loma Prieta earthquake, Louis Daguerre, Louis Pasteur, low skilled workers, manufacturing employment, Mark Zuckerberg, market fragmentation, Mason jar, mass immigration, mass incarceration, McMansion, Menlo Park, minimum wage unemployment, mortgage debt, mortgage tax deduction, new economy, Norbert Wiener, obamacare, occupational segregation, oil shale / tar sands, oil shock, payday loans, Peter Thiel, Phillips curve, pink-collar, pneumatic tube, Productivity paradox, Ralph Nader, Ralph Waldo Emerson, refrigerator car, rent control, restrictive zoning, revenue passenger mile, Robert Solow, Robert X Cringely, Ronald Coase, school choice, Second Machine Age, secular stagnation, Skype, Southern State Parkway, stem cell, Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, Steven Pinker, streetcar suburb, The Market for Lemons, The Rise and Fall of American Growth, Thomas Malthus, total factor productivity, transaction costs, transcontinental railway, traveling salesman, Triangle Shirtwaist Factory, undersea cable, Unsafe at Any Speed, Upton Sinclair, upwardly mobile, urban decay, urban planning, urban sprawl, vertical integration, warehouse robotics, washing machines reduced drudgery, Washington Consensus, Watson beat the top human players on Jeopardy!, We wanted flying cars, instead we got 140 characters, working poor, working-age population, Works Progress Administration, yellow journalism, yield management

Another early branded product, still in use today, was Lea and Perrin’s Worcestershire sauce.22 Although isolated examples of canned fruits, vegetables, and seafood had appeared, production in 1870 amounted to less than one can per person per year.23 Home preserving did not take off until after 1900, despite the introduction of the Mason jar in 1859, because of the perceived difficulty of the techniques and the relatively high price of the sugar needed for preserving.24 Canned foods were slow to be accepted in the eastern parts of the country because of expense, worry about contamination, and housewifely pride in “putting up” one’s own food and admiring the rows and rows of Mason jars with their colorful contents. It was in the frontier west that canned goods first reached widespread acceptance, primarily because they were the only way of introducing variety into an otherwise monotonous diet.

Transportation among all the Great Inventions is noteworthy for achieving 100 percent of its potential increase in speed in little more than a century, from the first primitive railroads replacing the stagecoach in the 1830s to the Boeing 707 flying near the speed of sound in 1958. Households in the late nineteenth century spent half their family budgets on food, and the transition of the food supply from medieval to modern also occurred during the special century. The Mason jar, invented in 1859 by John Landis Mason, made it possible to preserve food at home. The first canned meats were fed to Northern troops during the Civil War, and during the late nineteenth century a vast array of branded processed foods, from Kellogg’s corn flakes and Borden’s condensed milk to Jell-O, entered American homes.

See men Malthus, Thomas, 31–32 managed care, 490–94, 496–97 managerial/professional employment, 256 manufacturing: American system for, 561–62; assembly line introduced for, 557; decline in, 499, 628–29; globalization and decline in, 633; Index of Industrial Production and Industrial Capacity of, 585–86; occupations in, 249; productivity in, 269–70; wages paid in, 279; work week and hours in, 258 March of Dimes, 467 Marconi, Guglielmo, 21, 191 Margo, Robert, 345, 503, 542, 613 marketing, 597–98 marriage, 630–32, 644 Marshall Field’s (department store), 89, 296–97 Martin, Mary, 417 Mason, John Landis, 5 Mason jar, 5 mass production, 155 Maxwell, James Clark, 191 Maybach, Wilhelm, 150 McAfee, Andrew, 593, 597 McClennan, Mark, 484 McCloskey, Deirdre, 23 McCormick, Cyrus, 28, 263–64, 291, 312, 568 McCullough, J. F., 167 McKinlay, John and Sonja, 213, 215 McNamara, Frank, 450 meat: consumption of, 66, 82, 333–34, 339; production of, 220–22; rationing of, 335 mechanical reaper, 263–64 Mecherle, George, 309 medical care: hospitals for, 226–31; paying for, 234–37; predicting future of, 594; See also health and health care medical professions, 207, 232–33, 244; in 1870, 50–51; after 1940, 476–77; doctors, 224–28; nurses, 230 medical research, 232–33, 480 medical schools, 226–27, 232–33; cost of medical care and, 234 medical technology, 478–82, 594 Medicare and Medicaid, 489–90, 518, 642 medium-sized cities, housing in, 110–12 Meeker, Edward, 215 Memphis (Tennessee), 217 men: elderly, in labor force, 252–53; erectile dysfunction in, 486; housework done by, 277; in labor force, 34, 248, 250; ratio of women to, 630–31; as stay-at-home husbands, 508; tastes in clothing for, 350; teenagers (1870), 58; in working class (1870), 56 mental health, 473 Mercedes (automobiles), 157 Meucci, Antonio, 574 Micro Instrumentation and Telemetry Systems (MITS), 452 Microsoft, 452, 453, 574 microwave ovens, 358, 362 middle class, 498; in 1870, 46–47; in 1950s and 1960s, 503; bungalow movement housing for, 108–10; housing for (late nineteenth century), 107; market-purchased clothing for, 85–86; small-town housing for, 111 Midwestern cities, housing in, 105–7 midwives, 231, 274 migrations: in 1870, 35–36; of blacks, 368; housing for, 100; westward, 54 milk, 81–82, 220, 245 Miller, Grant, 207, 217–18, 244 minimum wage, 616, 644, 645 mining industry, 266–67 Minneapolis (Minnesota), 151 Miron, Jeffrey, 646 Mitchell, Margaret, 202 mobile (cell) phones, 411, 430–32, 577–78; smartphones, 437–38, 581 Model A (Ford automobile), 155–56, 559 Model T (Ford automobile), 153–56, 165, 169, 382, 559 Mokyr, Joel, 31; on access to running water, 216; on forecasting innovation, 590; on germ theory of disease, 219; on household production, 208, 278 Montgomery Ward catalog, 63, 90–91, 294, 332 Moore, Gordon, 444, 458 Moore’s Law, 444–47, 458, 524, 588–89, 593, 636 Morrill Acts (1862; 1890), 311–12 Morse, Samuel F.


pages: 669 words: 210,153

Tools of Titans: The Tactics, Routines, and Habits of Billionaires, Icons, and World-Class Performers by Timothy Ferriss

Abraham Maslow, Adam Curtis, Airbnb, Alexander Shulgin, Alvin Toffler, An Inconvenient Truth, artificial general intelligence, asset allocation, Atul Gawande, augmented reality, back-to-the-land, Ben Horowitz, Bernie Madoff, Bertrand Russell: In Praise of Idleness, Beryl Markham, billion-dollar mistake, Black Swan, Blue Bottle Coffee, Blue Ocean Strategy, blue-collar work, book value, Boris Johnson, Buckminster Fuller, business process, Cal Newport, call centre, caloric restriction, caloric restriction, Carl Icahn, Charles Lindbergh, Checklist Manifesto, cognitive bias, cognitive dissonance, Colonization of Mars, Columbine, commoditize, correlation does not imply causation, CRISPR, David Brooks, David Graeber, deal flow, digital rights, diversification, diversified portfolio, do what you love, Donald Trump, effective altruism, Elon Musk, fail fast, fake it until you make it, fault tolerance, fear of failure, Firefox, follow your passion, fulfillment center, future of work, Future Shock, Girl Boss, Google X / Alphabet X, growth hacking, Howard Zinn, Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, Jeff Bezos, job satisfaction, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, John Markoff, Kevin Kelly, Kickstarter, Lao Tzu, lateral thinking, life extension, lifelogging, Mahatma Gandhi, Marc Andreessen, Mark Zuckerberg, Mason jar, Menlo Park, microdosing, Mikhail Gorbachev, MITM: man-in-the-middle, Neal Stephenson, Nelson Mandela, Nicholas Carr, Nick Bostrom, off-the-grid, optical character recognition, PageRank, Paradox of Choice, passive income, pattern recognition, Paul Graham, peer-to-peer, Peter H. Diamandis: Planetary Resources, Peter Singer: altruism, Peter Thiel, phenotype, PIHKAL and TIHKAL, post scarcity, post-work, power law, premature optimization, private spaceflight, QWERTY keyboard, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Ray Kurzweil, recommendation engine, rent-seeking, Richard Feynman, risk tolerance, Ronald Reagan, Salesforce, selection bias, sharing economy, side project, Silicon Valley, skunkworks, Skype, Snapchat, Snow Crash, social graph, software as a service, software is eating the world, stem cell, Stephen Hawking, Steve Jobs, Stewart Brand, superintelligent machines, TED Talk, Tesla Model S, The future is already here, the long tail, The Wisdom of Crowds, Thomas L Friedman, traumatic brain injury, trolley problem, vertical integration, Wall-E, Washington Consensus, We are as Gods, Whole Earth Catalog, Y Combinator, zero-sum game

It is thanks to an ex-girlfriend who is a real sweetheart. She made and gave me the Jar of Awesome as a gift, because I’m very good at achievement and historically not good at appreciation. Here’s how it works: There is a mason jar on my kitchen counter with jar of awesome in glitter letters on the side. Anytime something really cool happens in a day, something that made me excited or joyful, doctor’s orders are to write it down on a slip of paper and put it in this mason jar. When something great happens, you think you’ll remember it 3 months later, but you won’t. The Jar of Awesome creates a record of great things that actually happened, all of which are easy to forget if you’re depressed or seeing the world through gray-colored glasses.

I find that 5 to 10 minutes in the morning can seemingly perform miracles, particularly for back pain. For one lat tear, this device was the only healing modality that got me back to training. Tera’s Whey Goat Whey Protein: If you are lactose-sensitive, this can be a godsend. Even for those who tolerate dairy well, many (like me) find it easier to digest. I use a simple mason jar for mixing. If it’s too goaty for you—I find it very neutral—consider adding a tablespoon of beet root powder from BeetElite or another brand. Source: Charles Poliquin (page 74). Mini-parallettes: Anyone who’s seen gymnastics knows of the parallel bars. Anyone who’s been to a CrossFit gym knows about the miniature versions called “parallettes,” typically made out of PVC pipes.


Bi-Rite Market's Eat Good Food: A Grocer's Guide to Shopping, Cooking & Creating Community Through Food by Sam Mogannam, Dabney Gough

carbon footprint, Community Supported Agriculture, food miles, Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, iterative process, Mason jar, Paradox of Choice

Use good-quality extra-virgin olive oil—the flavor will be well worth it on your beautiful greens. 1 cup extra-virgin olive oil ¼ cup freshly squeezed lemon juice ¼ cup champagne vinegar 1 small shallot, minced 2 teaspoons kosher salt 1½ teaspoons Dijon mustard 1½ teaspoons honey Combine all ingredients in a Mason jar, cover tightly, and shake vigorously. Refrigerated, it keeps for at least 2 weeks. Whisk or shake well before using; as always, be sure to taste the dressed ingredients and adjust the vinegar, lemon juice, or salt before serving. Tip: You can also add fresh garlic, finely grated lemon or orange zest, or fresh herbs such as chives, thyme, or basil to this vinaigrette.

Bring the liquid to a boil, partially cover the pan, and lower the heat to maintain a gentle simmer. Cook, stirring occasionally, until the pears are just tender and the flavors have melded, about 15 minutes. (It will still be fairly liquidy, but it will thicken as it cools.) Serve warm or at room temperature. Refrigerated, this keeps for up to 7 days. You can also process it in Mason jars and keep it for up to a year. GABRIEL FARM: Torrey Olson Torrey Olson just couldn’t leave well enough alone. His fourteen-acre organic orchard in Sebastopol, California, was already known for producing some of the most succulent, perfumey Asian pears, apples, and persimmons around. But Torrey decided to up his own ante and started using his fruit as the base for other products: everything from conserves to Asian pear juice.


pages: 495 words: 138,282

Ripe by Nigel Slater

haute cuisine, Mason jar, Stephen Fry

Turn down the heat and let the fruit and sugar simmer enthusiastically for twenty-five minutes, until the fruit is soft. Skim off any foam that rises to the surface and discard. Test to see if the jam is ready by dropping a small spoonful on a fridge-cold saucer and placing it in the fridge. If a skin forms within a minute or two, it is ready. Stir in the lemon juice, add the two apricot kernels, and transfer to Mason jars. Seal and store in the fridge. A few recipes for canned and dried apricots When apricots are halved, pitted, and dried, they take on an intense flavor with a welcome edge of acidity. Rather than becoming a shadow of its fresh self, a dried apricot develops true character and is often used in place of the fresh fruit in pastries and cakes.

Let the juice drip into the jug, giving it the occasional squeeze, until it has all dribbled through. Put the juice back into a clean saucepan and boil for four minutes, then add an equal amount of sugar (this is likely to be about a pound [500g] or 2 cups). When the sugar has dissolved, pour the mixture into clean, warm jars and seal. I use Mason jars with rubber seals. Leave to cool. To blet medlars Medlars are usually bought rock hard and have to be softened. Pull them off their leaves and place the whole fruits on a shallow plate. Don’t pile them up. Leave them at cool room temperature for a week or two until they turn deep brown and are soft, almost squashy, to the touch.


pages: 740 words: 227,963

The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America's Great Migration by Isabel Wilkerson

anti-communist, Berlin Wall, California gold rush, card file, cotton gin, desegregation, Ford Model T, Gunnar Myrdal, index card, indoor plumbing, invisible hand, labor-force participation, Mason jar, mass immigration, medical residency, Rosa Parks, strikebreaker, trade route, traveling salesman, union organizing, W. E. B. Du Bois, white flight, Works Progress Administration

You put it in the trunk so you know where it is. So when you get enough to go you can go.” But she wouldn’t get over all those lost weekends so easily. If he took her wants for granted, she would do the same for his. She stood there as if she hadn’t heard him. So George went and put the money away himself. Soon he had Mason jars full of quarters and halves, fruit jars filled with nickels and change rattling in tin cans, the start of a future in bottles all over the house. It was the start of 1943. When the picking season was over and it was nearing spring, everybody’s money went dry. The people needing rides trailed off.

He would pay them twenty-two cents. This time. The old men and women set their ladders in the trees and commenced picking, and by nightfall, they and these cocksure boys had made more in a day than they would have otherwise made in a week. People could buy stew meat now and put Sunday suits on will-call at Ferran’s. The Mason jars of quarters Lil George was saving up multiplied. He knew the wages they were making out in the groves couldn’t last forever. Everything depended on the supply and demand created by the war, and who knew how much more time they had? He decided to make the most of it while he could. The way things were going, he could earn enough money for college and then some.

“I just might.” “Let me see now.” The clerk gave him a figure. George did some adding himself and figured the quarters and halves would cover it. “Okay, I’ll take it.” “Well, you know this is for cash, you know.” “Yeah, I’ll take it.” George went out to the car and came back with a box of Mason jars and set the jars on the counter. “You got a can opener?” George asked. He had glued the tops on to keep the money from falling out or a thief from getting in. They cut the tops off, and George dumped the quarters and halves out on the counter. The coins clinked and rolled, and George started counting.


pages: 181 words: 53,257

Taming the To-Do List: How to Choose Your Best Work Every Day by Glynnis Whitwer

delayed gratification, en.wikipedia.org, fear of failure, Firefox, Jeff Bezos, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, late fees, Mason jar, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Stanford marshmallow experiment, Walter Mischel

As we celebrate our progress, we are learning to treat ourselves kindly. Plus we are building in motivation to press on when we might rather quit. And that is a win-win in my book. Call a Friend One year, a friend called and asked if I wanted to share the expense of materials for making homemade gifts. Her idea was to buy mason jars and fill them with ingredients for cookies, then give them to friends and neighbors. Since I’m not a very good shopper and tend to procrastinate on buying gifts, this sounded like a great idea to me. So we divvied up the shopping list of ingredients, met one Saturday, layered flour, brown sugar, and chocolate chips into jars, decorated them, and added crafty labels.


pages: 585 words: 151,239

Capitalism in America: A History by Adrian Wooldridge, Alan Greenspan

"Friedman doctrine" OR "shareholder theory", "World Economic Forum" Davos, 2013 Report for America's Infrastructure - American Society of Civil Engineers - 19 March 2013, Affordable Care Act / Obamacare, agricultural Revolution, air freight, Airbnb, airline deregulation, Alan Greenspan, American Society of Civil Engineers: Report Card, Asian financial crisis, bank run, barriers to entry, Bear Stearns, Berlin Wall, Blitzscaling, Bonfire of the Vanities, book value, Bretton Woods, British Empire, business climate, business cycle, business process, California gold rush, Charles Lindbergh, cloud computing, collateralized debt obligation, collective bargaining, Corn Laws, Cornelius Vanderbilt, corporate governance, corporate raider, cotton gin, creative destruction, credit crunch, debt deflation, Deng Xiaoping, disruptive innovation, Donald Trump, driverless car, edge city, Elon Musk, equal pay for equal work, Everybody Ought to Be Rich, Fairchild Semiconductor, Fall of the Berlin Wall, fiat currency, financial deregulation, financial engineering, financial innovation, fixed income, Ford Model T, full employment, general purpose technology, George Gilder, germ theory of disease, Glass-Steagall Act, global supply chain, Great Leap Forward, guns versus butter model, hiring and firing, Ida Tarbell, income per capita, indoor plumbing, informal economy, interchangeable parts, invention of the telegraph, invention of the telephone, Isaac Newton, Jeff Bezos, jimmy wales, John Maynard Keynes: technological unemployment, Joseph Schumpeter, junk bonds, Kenneth Rogoff, Kitchen Debate, knowledge economy, knowledge worker, labor-force participation, land bank, Lewis Mumford, Louis Pasteur, low interest rates, low skilled workers, manufacturing employment, market bubble, Mason jar, mass immigration, McDonald's hot coffee lawsuit, means of production, Menlo Park, Mexican peso crisis / tequila crisis, Michael Milken, military-industrial complex, minimum wage unemployment, mortgage debt, Myron Scholes, Network effects, new economy, New Urbanism, Northern Rock, oil rush, oil shale / tar sands, oil shock, Peter Thiel, Phillips curve, plutocrats, pneumatic tube, popular capitalism, post-industrial society, postindustrial economy, price stability, Productivity paradox, public intellectual, purchasing power parity, Ralph Nader, Ralph Waldo Emerson, RAND corporation, refrigerator car, reserve currency, rising living standards, road to serfdom, Robert Gordon, Robert Solow, Ronald Reagan, Sand Hill Road, savings glut, scientific management, secular stagnation, Silicon Valley, Silicon Valley startup, Simon Kuznets, Social Responsibility of Business Is to Increase Its Profits, South Sea Bubble, sovereign wealth fund, stem cell, Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, strikebreaker, supply-chain management, The Great Moderation, The Rise and Fall of American Growth, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, Thomas Malthus, Thorstein Veblen, too big to fail, total factor productivity, trade route, transcontinental railway, tulip mania, Tyler Cowen, Tyler Cowen: Great Stagnation, union organizing, Unsafe at Any Speed, Upton Sinclair, urban sprawl, Vannevar Bush, vertical integration, War on Poverty, washing machines reduced drudgery, Washington Consensus, white flight, wikimedia commons, William Shockley: the traitorous eight, women in the workforce, Works Progress Administration, Yom Kippur War, young professional

Some of the most enthusiastic customers were explorers who wanted to carry their provisions to the West. Gail Borden started producing condensed milk in 1856 and, as his new product took off, tried to apply the same technique to tea, coffee, potatoes, and pumpkins.32 John Landis Mason invented the Mason jar, which made it easier to preserve food at home, in 1859. The Union army ate canned food during the Civil War. Joseph Campbell started canning tomatoes, vegetables, jellies, condiments, and mincemeats in 1869, the same year that H. J. Heinz began selling packaged foods. By 1910, the country produced more than 3 billion cans of food, thirty-three cans per person, and food processing accounted for 20 percent of manufactured output.33 Domestic iceboxes took the food preservation revolution into people’s homes, reducing spoilage, particularly of milk and meat, and decreasing airborne disease.

., 148–49 logistics, 292–93 London Underground, 94 Long, Huey, 204, 245–46 Longworth, Alice Roosevelt, 182 Louisiana Purchase, 5, 35, 40, 42, 66–67 Louisiana State University, 246 Lowell, Francis Cabot, 36, 71 Lubell, Samuel, 248 Lynd, Robert and Helen, 11–12, 197 McCallum, Daniel, 137–38 McCormick, Cyrus, 15, 46–47, 72–73, 118 McDonald’s, 293, 390, 394, 428, 443 McDougall, Walter, 45 Macfarlane, Alan, 5–6 McGowan, William, 341 McKenzie, Frederick Arthur, 311 McKinley, William, 152, 159, 168, 181, 427–28 McKinsey, James, 264 McKinsey & Company, 317–18 McLean, Malcolm, 292–93 McNamara, Robert, 34, 212 McPherson, James, 41 Macy, Rowland Hussey, 3, 24, 140, 439 Maddison, Angus, 6 Madison, James, 65, 67–68, 157 Magna Carta, 69 mail-order catalogues, 140–42 Malthus, Thomas, 44, 300 management buyouts (MBOs), 341 management consultants, 264 management methods, 137–38, 209–12, 317–21 management science, 290–93 managerial capitalism, 287–90, 338 Mann, Horace, 73 manufacturing, 63, 65, 80, 94, 280, 280–81, 323, 359–60, 371 Marconi, Guglielmo, 203 Marden, Orison Swett, 165 Margo, Robert, 295 Markowitz, Harry, 383 Marshall, John, 66 Marshall Plan, 278–79 Martin, William McChesney, 304 Martineau, Harriet, 45 Marx, Karl, 9, 361 Mason, George, 64 Mason, John Landis, 120 Mason jar, 120 Massachusetts Bank, 32 Massachusetts Bay Company, 8, 134 Massachusetts State Board of Education, 73 mass production, 15–16, 72, 146–47, 194–95, 271–72, 314 Meacham, Jon, 66 Means, Gardiner, 206–7 Meckling, William, 337 Medicaid, 303–4, 404, 405 Medicare, 303–4, 372, 404–8, 442–43 Mellon, Andrew, 190, 237–38, 259 Meltzer, Allan, 242 Melville, Herman, 393 Mencken, H.


pages: 197 words: 60,477

So Good They Can't Ignore You: Why Skills Trump Passion in the Quest for Work You Love by Cal Newport

adjacent possible, Apple II, bounce rate, business cycle, Byte Shop, Cal Newport, capital controls, clean tech, Community Supported Agriculture, deal flow, deliberate practice, do what you love, financial independence, follow your passion, Frank Gehry, information asymmetry, job satisfaction, job-hopping, knowledge worker, Mason jar, medical residency, new economy, passive income, Paul Terrell, popular electronics, renewable energy credits, Results Only Work Environment, Richard Bolles, Richard Feynman, rolodex, Sand Hill Road, side project, Silicon Valley, Skype, Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, Stuart Kauffman, TED Talk, web application, winner-take-all economy

It takes the archaeologists all of thirty seconds to disprove this claim: Not a lot of suits from that period feature a “Made in China” tag. But this doesn’t dampen their enthusiasm. “You’re from a moonshine family,” notes French. “Yep,” drawls Leslie, the suit’s owner. “Let’s try some moonshine.” Soon a glass pitcher is produced. As Leslie pours the hootch into Mason jars, he offers a warning: “Don’t ask about the proof. You wouldn’t drink it if you knew.” As Kirk and Jason sit on a pair of logs, drinking the moonshine and swapping stories, surrounded by East Texas nothingness, they seem to be having a great time. I was hooked. To understand the appeal of American Treasures, you must understand its competition.


pages: 210 words: 63,879

Cold Hands by John J. Niven

centre right, Firefox, gentrification, hiring and firing, Mason jar, Maui Hawaii

So I’ve come up with a kind of condensed version for young Walt here.’ She moved towards her bag. Please God, no. ‘I think the thing that abhors us most as humans, as top-of-the-chain predators, is the idea of something feeding on us. Burrowing within us.’ She reached into the bag with both hands and hefted out a big glass Mason jar with a metal lid, the kind you see in old-fashioned sweet shops. There were airholes in the lid. Inside the jar – a fat, black rat. It was huge, almost completely filling the jar, with a long, wet-looking pink tail coiled around it. She set it down on the edge of the table. The rat was throwing itself at the glass, enraged, confused, its yellow teeth bared horribly.


pages: 519 words: 169,973

My Own Country: A Doctor's Story of a Town and Its People in the Age of AIDS by Abraham Verghese

contact tracing, gentleman farmer, gentrification, index card, Mason jar, medical residency

Such oddities came our way in infectious diseases that an autofocus camera that fit into a coat pocket was well worth carrying. Thus far I had only one other photograph of something a patient produced from her body. It was a picture of a neurotic woman from Mountain City posing next to a table with a giant Winn-Dixie paper bag on it. The contents of the bag were displayed on the table beside her: There was a Mason jar full of foamy, white secretions that she claimed came from her sinuses but that I was convinced were spit. Every day for two weeks before her appointment with me, she had pooled this expectoration into a jar, and allowed it to sit unrefrigerated. She had threatened to open the lid but I discouraged her—the ripe odor had already permeated the office building.

His eyes focused on my mouth, watching in disbelief, as I sang “Teach Your Children.” His tiny hands with the gold bangles Rajani had put on them were dancing around his face. He showed no signs of sleep. Rajani had gone for her evening walk and I was holding down the fort. Steven came out and clambered to the porch rail, his attention riveted on the lawn, a Mason jar clutched between his hands. His head swiveled this way and that as he tried to spot the fireflies flaming against the dark lawn and the sunset’s last light. “Ping! Ping!” he called, in time with the soft flash of one firefly. “Ping, ping.” When the telephone trilled within the house, I thought for a moment that the noise was coming from Steven.


pages: 214 words: 71,585

Selfish, Shallow, and Self-Absorbed: Sixteen Writers on the Decision Not to Have Kids by Meghan Daum

delayed gratification, demographic transition, Donald Trump, financial independence, happiness index / gross national happiness, index card, Joan Didion, Mason jar, Multics, peak oil, Ponzi scheme, risk tolerance, Skype, women in the workforce

Some days, we’d meet up after school and squeeze into the narrow space next to the eastern wall of my house, pull down our pants on the count of three, and spend a few minutes eyeballing one another. Eventually, looking begat discussing, which begat touching, which begat the one day in the summer of 1981, after capturing four baby frogs and placing them in a Mason jar for safekeeping, I pulled down my pants, had Daniel do the same, and thrust myself up against him. We stood there for ten seconds or so, my knees bent and my hips tilted upward so I could snuggle his little penis between my legs more easily—I was a good five inches taller than he was—but soon he got nervous, wiggled back into his shorts, and set out for home.


pages: 187 words: 66,656

Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life by Anne Lamott

do what you love, index card, Mason jar, Ralph Waldo Emerson, retail therapy, rolodex

At first I thought he was feeling around on the floor for the silent alarm button, but then he gave me the following exercise, which I still use to this day. Close your eyes and get quiet for a minute, until the chatter starts up. Then isolate one of the voices and imagine the person speaking as a mouse. Pick it up by the tail and drop it into a mason jar. Then isolate another voice, pick it up by the tail, drop it in the jar. And so on. Drop in any high-maintenance parental units, drop in any contractors, lawyers, colleagues, children, anyone who is whining in your head. Then put the lid on, and watch all these mouse people clawing at the glass, jabbering away, trying to make you feel like shit because you won’t do what they want—won’t give them more money, won’t be more successful, won’t see them more often.


pages: 196 words: 65,045

Art of Creative Nonfiction: Writing and Selling the Literature of Reality by Lee Gutkind, Purba

Apollo 13, Columbine, Donald Trump, Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, friendly fire, In Cold Blood by Truman Capote, Joan Didion, Mason jar, New Journalism, Norman Mailer, Ronald Reagan

Page 169 Readings The woman explained that she and her husband had very little use for cash, bartering for almost everything they needed. They traded vegetables, cultivated on their tiny patch of land, for fruit-corn for peaches, tomatoes for apples, pickles for pears, beets for pretty bluefire plums. He chopped wood in return for mason jars. Periodically, he repaired a car for a guy who owned a dry goods store in town in exchange for clothes for both of them. By bartering instead of buying and selling, they hardly paid Uncle Sam a penny's worth of taxes. Last summer, he raised a barn for some city folks, recently retired near here, in return for an old engine from a '64 Buick and a side of beef.


pages: 237 words: 69,985

The Longing for Less: Living With Minimalism by Kyle Chayka

Airbnb, Blue Bottle Coffee, Frank Gehry, gentrification, Guggenheim Bilbao, Jony Ive, Kickstarter, Lao Tzu, Mason jar, offshore financial centre, prosperity theology / prosperity gospel / gospel of success, public intellectual, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Richard Florida, Silicon Valley, Steve Jobs, Stewart Brand, technoutopianism, undersea cable, Whole Earth Catalog

So did a certain style of rustic simplicity, the kind epitomized by the lifestyle magazine Kinfolk, which was founded around the time of the crash and took root in Portland, Oregon. As the magazine’s soft-focus photo shoots demonstrated, perhaps too well, hosting an outdoor picnic with your friends, decked out in DIY peasant shawls, didn’t cost very much. Brooklyn was filled with faux-lumberjacks drinking out of mason jars. Conspicuous consumption, the ostentation of the previous decades, wasn’t just distasteful, it was unreachable. This faux-blue-collar hipsterism preceded the turn to high-gloss consumer minimalism that happened once the economic recovery kicked in, preparing the ground for its popularity. It makes sense that millennials embrace minimalism.


Food Trucks: Dispatches and Recipes From the Best Kitchens on Wheels by Shouse, Heather

fixed-gear, haute cuisine, Kickstarter, Mason jar, Maui Hawaii, place-making, rolodex, side project, South of Market, San Francisco

But ask Portland food cart vendors whom they consider a pil ar in the local scene and most wil point to a teal trailer that’s been parked in a grassy lot in the city’s Northeast Side since 2004. It hides behind an iron rooster perched above a weathered wooden sign reading “Moxie Rx.” Throw in the 1967 Kenskil camping trailer plastered with vintage bakeware, the attached eating area ensconced between a dirt floor and a rippling aluminum roof, the mason jars serving as flower vases, and the menu board advertising “elixirs” and “remedies” and you might feel as if you’ve stumbled into the lair of an Old West traveling medicine show. Only there’s no snake oil here—Moxie’s Nancye Benson rejuvenates hungover hipsters and half-dead hippies with potent cure-al s concocted from kale, mint, spirulina, ginger, echinacea, bee pol en, and just about any fruit or vegetable she can fit into a juicer.


pages: 226 words: 71,540

Epic Win for Anonymous: How 4chan's Army Conquered the Web by Cole Stryker

4chan, barriers to entry, Berlin Wall, Chelsea Manning, cognitive dissonance, Columbine, commoditize, creative destruction, crowdsourcing, eternal september, Firefox, future of journalism, Gabriella Coleman, hive mind, informal economy, Internet Archive, it's over 9,000, Julian Assange, Kickstarter, lolcat, Mark Zuckerberg, Marshall McLuhan, Mason jar, pre–internet, Silicon Valley, slashdot, social bookmarking, social web, Stephen Hawking, Steve Jobs, Stewart Brand, Streisand effect, technoutopianism, TED Talk, wage slave, We are Anonymous. We are Legion, Whole Earth Catalog, WikiLeaks

I’ve rarely ever posted anything on the site, and I came to the scene relatively late. But what I found on 4chan was a distillation of what made the web so special. It’s wild and weird—a level playing field where physicists and fathers rub shoulders with horny teenagers and senior citizens who compulsively collect their belly button lint in mason jars, with photographic proof. To be honest, I often find the place generally repulsive, but sometimes repulsive things have massive influence. On 4chan, you never quite know whom or what you’re going to run into. 4chan is like that burnout teenager who asked you and your childhood friends if y’all wanted to see a dead body down by the train tracks. 4chan is that kid in your class with Asperger’s who sketched out a hundred-page graphic novel based on the entire recorded output of the prog-metal band Rush.


pages: 227 words: 76,850

Scarred: The True Story of How I Escaped NXIVM, the Cult That Bound My Life by Sarah Edmondson

Albert Einstein, dark matter, financial independence, Keith Raniere, Mason jar, Skype, Steve Jobs, unpaid internship, upwardly mobile, young professional

Another type of penance was what we referred to as “collateral,” or something you valued that you would put on the line when making a commitment; for example, someone who was trying to write a book but had failed to meet their daily page count might commit to give $1,000 to an individual (as Keith believed that charities perpetuated dependence). The idea behind penances and collateral was that they had to be significant so that you would be compelled to do what you had committed to. This wasn’t a nickel in a Mason jar every time you said a curse word. You had to put something sizable on the line, so the penance was more painful than not completing your commitment. To me, both seemed to promote self-punishment. With these new policies in place and given the increase in prices for some of the courses over the past year or two, plus the exchange rate going up 30 to 40 percent on the dollar, enrollment began to lose some steam.


River Cottage Every Day by Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall

Community Supported Agriculture, Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, Kickstarter, Mason jar

You can still serve it on toast, of course, but at home we mostly have it for breakfast with pancakes or on yogurt. It’s outstanding with rice pudding, too. Make it with strawberries, raspberries, or gooseberries, or try my favorite cherry jam (see below). Makes about 6 cups 3 pounds fresh strawberries, raspberries, or gooseberries Juice of 1 lemon 4 cups sugar Sterilize some Mason jars or other suitable containers by washing them in hot, soapy water and drying in a very low oven (or put them through a dishwasher cycle). Divide the fruit in half, putting the smaller berries in one bowl, the larger ones in another (if the small ones are quite big, halve them). Coarsely crush the large ones with a potato masher (or by hand), then add the uncrushed berries, lemon juice, and sugar.


pages: 303 words: 81,071

Infinite Detail by Tim Maughan

3D printing, augmented reality, bitcoin, Black Lives Matter, Buckminster Fuller, Burning Man, cognitive dissonance, driverless car, fake news, Free Software Foundation, friendly fire, gentrification, global supply chain, hydroponic farming, Internet of things, Mason jar, messenger bag, off grid, Panamax, post-Panamax, ransomware, RFID, rolling blackouts, security theater, self-driving car, Skype, smart cities, South China Sea, surveillance capitalism, the built environment, urban decay, urban planning

Their host is cosplaying as an 1890s London sex worker, and Rush can’t decide whether she thinks it’s funny, edgy, ironic, or all three. After a painful ten minutes talking with her he decides she probably hasn’t thought about it much at all, as on hearing his accent she launches into detailing her love for Empire-era “England,” despite him mentioning his Pakistani heritage at least twice. Her apartment is full of shit. Mason jars and antique trinkets, perfume bottles and too many candleholders, like flea market trash excavated from a dead civilization’s landfill. What really creeps him out are the stuffed animals that inhabit the walls and shelves like cursed ghouls: twisted ravens and squirrels in top hats; dead cats with glass eyes sipping tea in waistcoats; a huge, once-elegant Komodo dragon reduced to a petrified, defeated corpse.


pages: 347 words: 88,114

The Zero-Waste Lifestyle: Live Well by Throwing Away Less by Amy Korst

airport security, Boeing 747, business climate, carbon footprint, delayed gratification, if you build it, they will come, Mason jar, messenger bag, microplastics / micro fibres, Parkinson's law

These are sturdy and see-through, so you always know what you’re grabbing from the pantry shelf. If you need to invest in some glass jars, remember the waste hierarchy: either reuse jars you already have, such as scrubbed and sanitized pickle or salsa jars (I peel off labels and run mine through the dishwasher), or head to your local thrift store, where you can almost always find old mason jars in near-perfect condition. Reusable Plastic or Glass Containers Packing lunches or storing leftovers becomes a new experience when done without waste. It’s easy to do as long as you have a stack of reusable containers lying around. Tupperware used to be the go- to choice for food storage, but in the past few years stores have seen an influx of inexpensive plastic or glass to-go containers.


pages: 296 words: 83,254

After the Gig: How the Sharing Economy Got Hijacked and How to Win It Back by Juliet Schor, William Attwood-Charles, Mehmet Cansoy

1960s counterculture, Airbnb, algorithmic management, Amazon Mechanical Turk, American Legislative Exchange Council, back-to-the-land, barriers to entry, bike sharing, Californian Ideology, carbon footprint, clean tech, collaborative consumption, collaborative economy, Community Supported Agriculture, COVID-19, creative destruction, crowdsourcing, deskilling, driverless car, en.wikipedia.org, financial independence, future of work, gentrification, George Gilder, gig economy, global supply chain, global village, haute cuisine, income inequality, independent contractor, information asymmetry, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), Jean Tirole, Jeff Bezos, jitney, job satisfaction, John Perry Barlow, John Zimmer (Lyft cofounder), Kevin Kelly, Lyft, Marshall McLuhan, Mason jar, mass incarceration, Mitch Kapor, Network effects, new economy, New Urbanism, Occupy movement, peer-to-peer rental, Post-Keynesian economics, precariat, profit maximization, profit motive, race to the bottom, regulatory arbitrage, rent gap, rent-seeking, ride hailing / ride sharing, Ruby on Rails, selection bias, sharing economy, Silicon Valley, Silicon Valley ideology, Skype, smart cities, social distancing, Stewart Brand, TaskRabbit, technological determinism, technoutopianism, Telecommunications Act of 1996, The Nature of the Firm, the payments system, Tragedy of the Commons, transaction costs, transportation-network company, Travis Kalanick, two-sided market, Uber and Lyft, Uber for X, uber lyft, urban planning, wage slave, walking around money, Whole Earth Catalog, women in the workforce, working poor, Yochai Benkler, Zipcar

The failure was compounded by their use of the wrong packaging—Ziploc bags. Tupperware and other plastic containers were also no-nos. Plastic is too associated with industrial food and reeks of artificiality rather than “real-ness,” a frequently referenced criterion. Successful trades usually involved a Mason jar, the then-trendy container that symbolized good hygiene, foodie knowledge, and the right aesthetic sensibility. Creative labels merited bonus points. So to some extent we can chalk up the food swap’s failure to snobbery. Food is an area where cultural capital—preference for high-status goods and practices on the basis of knowledge and familiarity rather than cost—is legendary.


pages: 270 words: 82,332

Rich and Pretty: A Novel by Rumaan Alam

East Village, Etonian, family office, Joan Didion, Mason jar, urban decay

Yes, I will come. Duh. Don’t be a moron.” “Talk to me about something besides this wedding.” Sarah’s eye falls on the stack of bridal magazines on the coffee table, several pages dog-eared for reasons she can’t recall. It just felt like what she should be doing—folding down pages and mentally filing away: mason jars for cocktails, Polaroid cameras left with the centerpieces, a basket of flip-flops by the dance floor. “What happened with temp?” “Temp is fine. Temp is the same. Temp and I are working together on something, actually.” “Just be careful,” Sarah says. “Your promotion probably means you’re his boss.


pages: 287 words: 85,518

Please Report Your Bug Here: A Novel by Josh Riedel

Burning Man, Chuck Templeton: OpenTable:, financial independence, Golden Gate Park, invisible hand, Joan Didion, Mason jar, Menlo Park, messenger bag, off-the-grid, Port of Oakland, pre–internet, risk/return, Sand Hill Road, shareholder value, Silicon Valley, tech bro, tech worker, Whole Earth Catalog, work culture

I took a sip of espresso and slid my laptop out of my bag, careful not to make much noise, and connected to the City of Palo Alto free wi-fi (the café had none). Noma, you there I have updates. Not at Corp. I waited. No response. “Did you pay?” the annoyed man asked. “I didn’t know—” “How are they supposed to sustain themselves if…” He trailed off, shaking his head. I stood up to find the register. “It’s there,” the man said. He pointed to a mason jar on the counter, full of wadded-up bills. “This is all I have.” I held up my credit card, an American Express Gold card I applied for after the acquisition. I knew that with the Corporation listed as my employer, AmEx wouldn’t turn down my application, and I’d always wanted a charge card like this, with no stated limit.


pages: 407 words: 90,238

Stealing Fire: How Silicon Valley, the Navy SEALs, and Maverick Scientists Are Revolutionizing the Way We Live and Work by Steven Kotler, Jamie Wheal

"World Economic Forum" Davos, 3D printing, Abraham Maslow, Alexander Shulgin, Alvin Toffler, augmented reality, Berlin Wall, Bernie Sanders, bitcoin, blockchain, Burning Man, Colonization of Mars, crowdsourcing, David Brooks, delayed gratification, disruptive innovation, driverless car, Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, Elon Musk, en.wikipedia.org, Future Shock, Hacker News, high batting average, hive mind, How many piano tuners are there in Chicago?, hype cycle, Hyperloop, impulse control, independent contractor, informal economy, Jaron Lanier, John Markoff, John Perry Barlow, Kevin Kelly, Larry Ellison, lateral thinking, Mason jar, Maui Hawaii, McMansion, means of production, Menlo Park, meta-analysis, microdosing, military-industrial complex, mirror neurons, music of the spheres, off-the-grid, pattern recognition, Peter Thiel, PIHKAL and TIHKAL, prosperity theology / prosperity gospel / gospel of success, Ray Kurzweil, ride hailing / ride sharing, risk tolerance, science of happiness, selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI), Silicon Valley, Silicon Valley billionaire, Silicon Valley startup, Skype, Steve Jobs, synthetic biology, TED Talk, time dilation, Tony Hsieh, urban planning, Virgin Galactic

“Of course,” says Cronin, “this printer will also lead to new frameworks for discovery and increase the possibilities of new kinds of mind-altering drugs.” While all manner of psychoactive plants are available online, allowing the adventurous to distill potent psychedelics with little more than a Crock-Pot, some Mason jars and a turkey baster, the DEA and INTERPOL can still shut down these gray market suppliers. But Cronin’s 3D drug printer renders that kind of oversight almost impossible. After all, how can you regulate access to controlled substances when the raw materials have become as pedestrian as paraffin wax and vegetable oil?


pages: 302 words: 92,507

Cold: Adventures in the World's Frozen Places by Bill Streever

Albert Einstein, carbon footprint, coastline paradox / Richardson effect, company town, Easter island, Edward Lorenz: Chaos theory, Exxon Valdez, Mason jar, Medieval Warm Period, ocean acidification, refrigerator car, San Francisco homelessness, South China Sea, Thales of Miletus, the scientific method, University of East Anglia

But occasionally they stumbled upon bones, upon tusks and teeth of mammoths and mastodons, and they may have wandered through boulder-strewn forests and grasslands, perhaps even having their own word for erratics, wondering why such large rocks would be resting so far from anything resembling a mountain. It is May sixth and warm in Anchorage, truly spring. To celebrate, I take my caterpillars Fram and Bedford from the freezer. They have been on ice since September twenty-third. I put the frozen but presumably undead bodies of my two patients in a mason jar lined with the budding leaves of birch and willow and sambucus. Optimistically, I poke airholes in the jar’s lid. I also take out my frozen mud, collected in September and stored in the freezer ever since. I open the jar to let the mud thaw. The Anchorage paper runs a full-page article on mosquito evolution.


pages: 291 words: 92,688

Who Is Rich? by Matthew Klam

carried interest, dark matter, Dr. Strangelove, liberation theology, Mason jar, mass incarceration, plutocrats, race to the bottom, Silicon Valley, TED Talk

Something about Sammy, a cross-eyed three-year-old from camp, and Rigby, a boy who never smiled and chased her around with a territorial scowl, and Molly, who told her there were “witches in our country.” “There are no witches, honey.” “If you see a witch, you gotta chop off da head.” “Did Molly tell you that?” “Yah. Do you know dat spiderwebs can trap your hands?” “Did Molly tell you that, too?” In the background I heard the mason jar of macaroni being opened, the lid rattling on the counter, the sound of pasta hitting the glass measuring cup, the whoosh as it spilled into the pot. I could feel in Robin’s silence her exhaustion, disorientation, and rage. I did my best to set Kaya straight on the occult. I could feel the kitchen’s silent appraisal of me, of my acts of liberation, my remorse and rationalization, and of my failed experiments with the plutocracy.


pages: 401 words: 93,256

Alchemy: The Dark Art and Curious Science of Creating Magic in Brands, Business, and Life by Rory Sutherland

"World Economic Forum" Davos, 3D printing, Alfred Russel Wallace, barriers to entry, basic income, behavioural economics, Black Swan, Brexit referendum, butterfly effect, California gold rush, call centre, Captain Sullenberger Hudson, Cass Sunstein, cognitive dissonance, confounding variable, Daniel Kahneman / Amos Tversky, Dava Sobel, delayed gratification, Donald Trump, double helix, Downton Abbey, driverless car, Easter island, Edward Jenner, Elon Musk, Firefox, Ford Model T, General Magic , George Akerlof, gig economy, Google Chrome, Google X / Alphabet X, Grace Hopper, Hyperloop, Ignaz Semmelweis: hand washing, IKEA effect, information asymmetry, it is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it, James Dyson, John Harrison: Longitude, loss aversion, low cost airline, Mason jar, Murray Gell-Mann, nudge theory, Peter Thiel, placebo effect, race to the bottom, Richard Feynman, Richard Thaler, Rory Sutherland, shareholder value, Silicon Valley, social intelligence, Steve Jobs, supply-chain management, systems thinking, TED Talk, the map is not the territory, The Market for Lemons, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, ultimatum game, universal basic income, Upton Sinclair, US Airways Flight 1549, Veblen good, work culture

A few years ago we discovered that men were reluctant to order a cocktail in a bar – in part because they had no foreknowledge of the glass in which it would be served. If they thought there was even a slight chance that it would arrive in a hollowed out pineapple, they would order a beer instead. One remedy was to put illustrations or pictures of the drinks on the menu; some trendy venues have since solved the problem by serving all their cocktails in mason jars. The same sort of mental calculus explains why it is so difficult to get people to move their current account from one bank to another paying a higher rate of interest, or to shift their broadband provision. A 1 per cent chance of a nightmarish experience dwarfs a 99 per cent chance of a 5 per cent gain. 5.6: JFK vs EWR: Why the Best Is Not Always the Least Worst I once asked, over Twitter, whether there were any clear advantages to flying to JFK Airport in New York rather than Newark.* Other than a string of replies from New Yorkers with an inbuilt disdain for anything in New Jersey* there seemed to be few arguments for using JFK: Newark is closer to Manhattan, and risks fewer roadworks or delays on the journey.


Miracle in the Andes: 72 Days on the Mountain and My Long Trek Home by Nando Parrado, Vince Rause

Mason jar

(Lina also raised a small flock of ducks and chickens in the yard, and it must have startled the neighbors when they realized that this blue-eyed, white-haired old woman, who dressed with the simplicity of a European peasant and wore her gardening tools on a leather belt slung on her hips, was running a small working farm in one of the city’s most mannered and manicured neighborhoods.) Under Lina’s loving attention, the garden was soon producing bumper crops of beans, peas, greens, peppers, squash, corn, tomatoes—far too much for us to eat, but my mother would not let any of it go to waste. She spent hours in the kitchen with Lina, canning the surplus produce in mason jars, and storing it all in the pantry so that we could enjoy the fruits of the garden all year round. My mother hated waste and pretense, valued frugality, and never lost her faith in the value of hard work. My father’s business demanded much from her, and she labored long and hard to make it successful, but she was also very active in our lives, always there to send us off to school or welcome us home, never missing my soccer and rugby games, or my sisters’ plays and recitals at school.


pages: 372 words: 96,474

Dishwasher: One Man's Quest to Wash Dishes in All Fifty States (P.S.) by Pete Jordan

big-box store, Exxon Valdez, financial independence, Haight Ashbury, index card, intentional community, Kickstarter, Mason jar, rent control, Ronald Reagan, Upton Sinclair, urban planning, wage slave

So even if I gave Lara a date of departure or named a destination, there was no guarantee that the plan would be carried out. So every time she asked, I continued to answer, “I don’t know yet.” Then one day, while she was washing our hosts’ dishes, she happened to inquire one more time. Hearing my standard answer—yet again—made her furious. She took the soapy mason jar she was washing and chucked it at me. It whizzed past my head and shattered against the wall. When she dumped me not long afterwards, I was glad to regain the freedom to whimsically make and change my plans. But I was still slow to understand why any woman wouldn’t want to have a relationship with me.


Vertical Vegetable Gardening by McLaughlin, Chris.

Mason jar

If you have a bed intended especially for tomatoes, try to bring the pH a little lower, as they prefer their soil a little on the sour side—as do potatoes. DIY Kitchen pH Test This is a simple experiment you can do at home to determine if your soil falls on the sweet or sour side of things. It doesn’t take the place of any in-depth testing. What you’ll need: Measuring cup 2 mason jar–sized containers 1 cup soil sample 1 ⁄ 2 cup white vinegar 1 ⁄ 2 cup water 1 ⁄ 2 cup baking soda 1. In the first container, add 1 ⁄ 2 cup soil and 1 ⁄ 2 cup of vinegar and then mix it up. If it bubbles (or fizzes), it’s alkaline. The more it bubbles; the higher the alkalinity of the soil. 2.


pages: 299 words: 99,080

The Soul of a New Machine by Tracy Kidder

carbon-based life, Jarndyce and Jarndyce, Mason jar, military-industrial complex, Multics, Norbert Wiener, pattern recognition, post-industrial society, silicon-based life

Among others, I saw Centronics, Nortronics, Key Tronic, Tektronix and also General Robotics. There were Northern Telecom and Infoton and Centurion, which had a fellow dressed as a Roman soldier standing by its booth. There were Colorgraphics and Summagraphics; Altergo and C. Itoh; and Ball. "Hey, wait a minute. What's Ball doing here? Aren't they the mason jar people?" "Yeah, but they also make disk drives." Also: the Society for Computer Simulation, and Randomex, and Edge Technology, and Van San, which sold "Quietizers." There were Datum, Data Pro and Data I/O, Tri Data, Epic Data, Facit Data, Control Data, Decision Data, Data General and Data Specialties.


pages: 308 words: 96,604

American Pain: How a Young Felon and His Ring of Doctors Unleashed America’s Deadliest Drug Epidemic by John Temple

"RICO laws" OR "Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations", airport security, barriers to entry, citizen journalism, illegal immigration, independent contractor, Mason jar, McMansion, offshore financial centre, opioid epidemic / opioid crisis, pill mill, tech billionaire

She showed her passengers how to tilt their hips in the MRI machine so their spines would look out of whack. If she didn’t have a passenger who had clean urine that everyone could share, she brought a bottle of clean urine (clean-ish, actually—there was supposed to be some oxycodone in there, since you were supposedly a pain patient). It wasn’t hard to get urine. Folks back home had taken to selling Mason jars of it at flea markets. Whitney knew the fees by heart: $200 for a first-time visit, $250 for an MRI, $50 to bump a patient to the head of the line. Plus maybe $500 to fill the scrips. So sponsoring one runner’s trip might set Aunt Pat back a thousand bucks, plus fifty of the oxy 30s, plus gas.


pages: 550 words: 89,316

The Sum of Small Things: A Theory of the Aspirational Class by Elizabeth Currid-Halkett

assortative mating, back-to-the-land, barriers to entry, Bernie Sanders, biodiversity loss, BRICs, Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty, clean water, cognitive dissonance, David Brooks, deindustrialization, Deng Xiaoping, discrete time, disruptive innovation, Downton Abbey, East Village, Edward Glaeser, en.wikipedia.org, Etonian, fixed-gear, food desert, Ford Model T, gentrification, Geoffrey West, Santa Fe Institute, income inequality, iterative process, knowledge economy, longitudinal study, Mason jar, means of production, NetJets, new economy, New Urbanism, plutocrats, post scarcity, post-industrial society, profit maximization, public intellectual, Richard Florida, selection bias, Sheryl Sandberg, Silicon Valley, systems thinking, tacit knowledge, The Design of Experiments, the High Line, The inhabitant of London could order by telephone, sipping his morning tea in bed, the various products of the whole earth, the long tail, the market place, The Theory of the Leisure Class by Thorstein Veblen, Thorstein Veblen, Tony Hsieh, Tyler Cowen, Tyler Cowen: Great Stagnation, upwardly mobile, Veblen good, women in the workforce

In these types of boutiques, those rare items on the rack that are in fact made in China are rebranded as “Designed in Scandinavia” (or France, or some such reputable point of origin), with a subtle second line to the label, “Made in the People’s Republic of China”—as if this location is any different at all from China itself. One such place that captures the return to place in product is Urban Rustic, in Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn.17 With battered, unfinished wood floors and mason jars for glasses, this small boutique only sells food and drink sourced and made in New York, a business model that seems precarious in the long term, but thus far has been wildly successful. The shelves are lined with candy sticks from a bygone era, fresh simple flowers seemingly picked from the owners’ backyard, and beer and pickles proudly brewed and brined (respectively) in New York.


pages: 292 words: 99,273

Paddle Your Own Canoe: One Man's Fundamentals for Delicious Living by Nick Offerman

Berlin Wall, Downton Abbey, lateral thinking, Mason jar, telemarketer, wage slave, Wall-E

I finally felt like things were beginning to sputter to life for me in Los Angeles. The snowball began to pick up speed, almost imperceptibly, but still, that was a good sight better than slowing down and melting. * * * Not long after this small triumph, planted in front of Dawson’s Creek one night with our preferred dinners—a can of Virginia blister peanuts and a mason jar full of Jim Beam, water, and ice—Pat and I were undoubtedly feeling romantic after seeing what those rascals Pacey and Dawson were up to. We observed, “Okay. This is pathetic. There’s gotta be some high-quality women in this town looking for us. We’ve met a lot of ladies, we’ve seen how this town works now.


pages: 308 words: 98,022

Let's Pretend This Never Happened (A Mostly True Memoir) by Jenny Lawson

cotton gin, impulse control, Mason jar, Pepsi Challenge, Pepto Bismol, Rubik’s Cube, Saturday Night Live, telemarketer, Y2K

Just a small one, though, because I’m aware of fire safety. I bought the kind you use to make the top of crème brûlée crunchy. And a lot of lighter fluid. I still shoo spiders and moths out of the house with plastic cups, but these scorpions are going to die painfully. Neighbors advised that we should place the feet of our beds in mason jars to keep the scorpions from crawling into bed with us at night, as glass is the only surface they’re unable to climb. I consider how much it would cost to cover everything in the house with a layer of glass, but Victor convinces me the glass couch would leave questionable marks on sweaty summer days.


pages: 305 words: 101,743

Trick Mirror: Reflections on Self-Delusion by Jia Tolentino

4chan, Affordable Care Act / Obamacare, Airbnb, Alexander Shulgin, big-box store, Black Lives Matter, cloud computing, Comet Ping Pong, crowdsourcing, Donald Trump, financial independence, game design, Jeff Bezos, Jon Ronson, Kickstarter, knowledge worker, late capitalism, Lyft, Mark Zuckerberg, Mason jar, Norman Mailer, obamacare, pattern recognition, Peter Thiel, Ponzi scheme, prosperity theology / prosperity gospel / gospel of success, public intellectual, QR code, rent control, Saturday Night Live, selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI), Sheryl Sandberg, Silicon Valley, Snapchat, Steve Bannon, Steve Jobs, TED Talk, TikTok, uber lyft, upwardly mobile, wage slave, white picket fence

(Rehn and Sutter were paid $1 million for the TV rights.) And then, in the 2010s, came the elaborate monoculture of Pinterest, the image-sharing social network that produced a new, ubiquitous, “traditional” wedding aesthetic, teaching couples to manufacture a sense of authenticity through rented barns, wildflowers in mason jars, old convertibles or rusty pickup trucks. The industry churns on today, riding high and manic in the wake of two recent bride coronations: Kate Middleton, rigorously thin in her Alexander McQueen princess gown ($434,000), and Meghan Markle, doe-eyed in boatneck Givenchy ($265,000). Despite the economic precarity that has threatened the American population since the 2008 recession, weddings have only been getting more expensive.


pages: 365 words: 96,573

Breath: The New Science of a Lost Art by James Nestor

Albert Einstein, epigenetics, Golden Gate Park, Haight Ashbury, Khan Academy, Mahatma Gandhi, Mark Zuckerberg, Mason jar, off-the-grid, placebo effect, randomized controlled trial, selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI), Silicon Valley, skunkworks, Skype, stem cell, TED Talk

I wanted to feel it for myself, so I signed up for a session. * * * • • • On a crisp fall day I drove a few hours north of Grof’s home to a hot springs resort tucked beneath the shade of ancient redwoods. There were dusty yurts, heavily bearded men in toe shoes, women in braids wearing turquoise, homemade granola in Mason jars. It was exactly the kind of scene I’d expected. What I didn’t expect were the corporate lawyers, architects in pressed polo shirts, and muscle men in military-style flattops who had also gathered here. A dozen of us walked into an activity room of a dormitory. Half the group lay down on the floor and prepared to breathe while the other half, the sitters, watched over them.


pages: 332 words: 100,245

Mine!: How the Hidden Rules of Ownership Control Our Lives by Michael A. Heller, James Salzman

23andMe, Airbnb, behavioural economics, Berlin Wall, Big Tech, British Empire, Cass Sunstein, clean water, collaborative consumption, Cornelius Vanderbilt, coronavirus, COVID-19, CRISPR, crowdsourcing, Donald Trump, Downton Abbey, Elon Musk, endowment effect, estate planning, facts on the ground, Fall of the Berlin Wall, Firefox, Garrett Hardin, gig economy, Hernando de Soto, Internet of things, land tenure, Mason jar, Neil Armstrong, new economy, North Sea oil, offshore financial centre, oil rush, planetary scale, race to the bottom, recommendation engine, rent control, Richard Thaler, Ronald Coase, sharing economy, Shoshana Zuboff, Silicon Valley, Silicon Valley startup, social distancing, South China Sea, sovereign wealth fund, stem cell, surveillance capitalism, TaskRabbit, The future is already here, Tim Cook: Apple, Tony Fadell, Tragedy of the Commons, you are the product, Zipcar

Larry ordered, “Put ’em in your pocket—we could split ’em.” It was Greg and Larry’s lucky day. They had just found ninety-six half eagles, eagles, and double eagles—gold coins minted between 1857 and 1914 and worth about $25,000 when they dug them up. A century back, when Sun Valley was a ragged mining outpost, someone had buried the coins in a mason jar and never returned for them. Greg shouted, “We’ll get a reward! We are going to be on the cover of Rolling Stone!” “Shut up,” Larry muttered. “This is between you and me.” Larry held on to the coins while they considered what to do. Eventually, Greg demanded half the find. Larry worried Greg might resort to violence.


pages: 296 words: 97,735

Priestdaddy: A Memoir by Patricia Lockwood

always be closing, Mason jar

I actually called him a sensualist once, meaning simply that he liked food, music, fine wine, jazz, and cascading lace all over his body, and he nearly cried. It obsessed him for weeks. “What do you mean I am a sensualist,” he would burst out at me, bothered, from time to time as we sat with our books. • • • A PACKAGE IS WAITING for him on the bottom stair; it’s a present from his father. He slits it open and lifts out a mason jar full of grass, containing a picture of him kneeling on an altar in gold vestments and a card that says PURIFY AND CLEANSE. I feel justified in saying it is the greatest gift anyone has ever received. It’s better than the stuffed-cat radio by far. It sounds like a craft project you would read about in one of those pastel magazines for women on Valium, but I’ve been assured that the seminarian’s father is a butch and monosyllabic man who built himself a pizza oven in his own backyard.


pages: 286 words: 101,129

Spaceman: An Astronaut's Unlikely Journey to Unlock the Secrets of the Universe by Mike Massimino

Affordable Care Act / Obamacare, Albert Einstein, Apollo 11, Apollo 13, carbon-based life, Charles Lindbergh, company town, Gene Kranz, imposter syndrome, James Webb Space Telescope, low earth orbit, Mars Rover, Mason jar, Neil Armstrong, Silicon Valley, systems thinking, telerobotics, Virgin Galactic, Yom Kippur War

The veteran astronauts who’d flown on the first three servicing missions—several of them were on hand. This was the A-team. The Hubble was built by Lockheed Martin in California, and several of its instruments were built by Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp. in Boulder, Colorado. (It’s part of the same company that makes the Ball mason jars you have in your kitchen.) All their top Hubble people were there. The Hubble team from the Goddard Space Flight Center was there, too. Frank Cepollina, whom everyone called Cepi, ran the show at Goddard. He was well past retirement age, but he loved what he did, so he kept doing it. Cepi looked like one of my old Italian uncles: balding, always chewing a stick of gum.


pages: 308 words: 103,890

Hell's Angels: A Strange and Terrible Saga by Hunter S. Thompson

air freight, anti-communist, Golden Gate Park, Mason jar, the market place, traffic fines, traveling salesman, urban sprawl

He began to sneak out of the house through the servants’ entrance and run a few blocks to a gas station where he kept a hopped-up ’37 Ford with no fenders … and spend the rest of the night hanging around honky-tonk bars and truck stops, dressed in dirty overalls and a crusty green T-shirt with a Bardahl emblem on the back. He enjoyed cadging beers and belting whores around when they spurned his crude propositions. One night, after long haggling, he bought several mason jars full of home whiskey, which he drank while driving at high speed through the Beverly Hills area. When the old Ford finally threw a rod he abandoned it and called a taxi, which took him to his own automobile agency. He kicked down a side door, hot-wired a convertible waiting for tune-up and drove out to Highway 101, where he got in a drag race with some hoodlums from Pasadena.


pages: 338 words: 104,684

The Deficit Myth: Modern Monetary Theory and the Birth of the People's Economy by Stephanie Kelton

2013 Report for America's Infrastructure - American Society of Civil Engineers - 19 March 2013, Affordable Care Act / Obamacare, Alan Greenspan, American Society of Civil Engineers: Report Card, Apollo 11, Asian financial crisis, bank run, Bernie Madoff, Bernie Sanders, blockchain, bond market vigilante , book value, Bretton Woods, business cycle, capital controls, carbon tax, central bank independence, collective bargaining, COVID-19, currency manipulation / currency intervention, currency peg, David Graeber, David Ricardo: comparative advantage, decarbonisation, deindustrialization, discrete time, Donald Trump, eurozone crisis, fiat currency, floating exchange rates, Food sovereignty, full employment, gentrification, Gini coefficient, global reserve currency, global supply chain, green new deal, high-speed rail, Hyman Minsky, income inequality, inflation targeting, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), investor state dispute settlement, Isaac Newton, Jeff Bezos, liquidity trap, low interest rates, Mahatma Gandhi, manufacturing employment, market bubble, Mason jar, Modern Monetary Theory, mortgage debt, Naomi Klein, National Debt Clock, new economy, New Urbanism, Nixon shock, Nixon triggered the end of the Bretton Woods system, obamacare, open economy, Paul Samuelson, Phillips curve, Ponzi scheme, Post-Keynesian economics, price anchoring, price stability, pushing on a string, quantitative easing, race to the bottom, reserve currency, Richard Florida, Ronald Reagan, San Francisco homelessness, shareholder value, Silicon Valley, Tax Reform Act of 1986, trade liberalization, urban planning, working-age population, Works Progress Administration, yield curve, zero-sum game

The crowd marveled at the sight as reams of uncut $10s, $20s and $100s spun from the machines. Then someone said what we were all thinking. “I wish I could do that!” Alas, to avoid the orange jumpsuits we need to leave the manufacturing to the US Bureau of Engraving and Printing. Those notes make up part of the supply of US currency. As those old mason jars full of pennies, nickels, and dimes on your grandmother’s shelf attest, the government also issues US currency in the form of coins. Just as the Federal Reserve describes itself as “the issuing authority for all Federal Reserve notes,” the US Mint describes itself as “the nation’s sole manufacturer of legal tender coinage.”


Coastal California Travel Guide by Lonely Planet

1960s counterculture, Airbnb, airport security, Albert Einstein, anti-communist, Apollo 11, Apple II, Asilomar, back-to-the-land, Bay Area Rapid Transit, bike sharing, Burning Man, buy and hold, California gold rush, call centre, car-free, carbon footprint, company town, Day of the Dead, Donner party, East Village, El Camino Real, Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, flex fuel, Frank Gehry, gentrification, glass ceiling, Golden Gate Park, Haight Ashbury, haute couture, haute cuisine, income inequality, intermodal, Joan Didion, Kickstarter, Loma Prieta earthquake, low cost airline, Lyft, machine readable, Mason jar, military-industrial complex, New Journalism, Northpointe / Correctional Offender Management Profiling for Alternative Sanctions, off-the-grid, Peoples Temple, ride hailing / ride sharing, Ronald Reagan, Rosa Parks, Saturday Night Live, Silicon Valley, Silicon Valley startup, South of Market, San Francisco, starchitect, stealth mode startup, stem cell, Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, Stewart Brand, trade route, transcontinental railway, uber lyft, Upton Sinclair, upwardly mobile, urban sprawl, Wall-E, white picket fence, Whole Earth Catalog, women in the workforce, working poor, Works Progress Administration, young professional, Zipcar

Make WestingCOCKTAIL BAR ( MAP GOOGLE MAP ; %510-251-1400; www.makewesting.com; 1741 Telegraph Ave; h4pm-2am; Z19th St Oakland) On weekends, people pack this Uptown hot spot, named for a Jack London short story, for its indoor bocce courts and eclectic cocktails. Toss back a 'Garden Gimlet' (gin, cucumber, basil and lime) and satiate the munchies with cilantro-and-habañero-infused popcorn or a mason jar of homemade pickled beets. TrappistPUB ( MAP GOOGLE MAP ; %510-238-8900; www.thetrappist.com; 460 8th St; hnoon-12:30am Sun-Thu, to 1:30am Fri & Sat; ZOakland 12th St City Center) Busting out of its original brick-and-wood-paneled shoe box into a second storefront and outdoor back patio, this place specialises in Belgian ales.

It’s across Hwy 101 from the train tracks, so light sleepers should pack earplugs. 5Eating oFish 101SEAFOOD$ ( MAP GOOGLE MAP ; %760-634-6221; www.fish101restaurant.com; 1468 N Coast Hwy 101; mains $10-14) In this casual grown-up fish shack, order at the counter, sidle up to a butcher-block table, sip craft beer or Mexican coke from a mason jar and tuck into albacore-tuna poke, clam chowder, shrimp po'boy or fish-and-chips. Simple grilling techniques allow the catch's natural flavors to show through, and healthy rice-bran oil is used for frying. EveVEGAN$$ ( MAP GOOGLE MAP ; %760-230-2560; www.eveencinitas.com; 575 S Coast Hwy 101; Buddha bowls $12; h8am-9pm; v)S One part coffee shop, one part lounge and one part restaurant, this new vegan eatery serves hearty salad bowls heaped with goodness.


pages: 347 words: 112,727

Rust: The Longest War by Jonathan Waldman

2013 Report for America's Infrastructure - American Society of Civil Engineers - 19 March 2013, Anton Chekhov, computer age, David Brooks, digital map, Exxon Valdez, Frederick Winslow Taylor, Golden Gate Park, index card, Isaac Newton, Mason jar, military-industrial complex, pez dispenser, Ralph Nader, RAND corporation, Ronald Reagan, Works Progress Administration, Y2K

Nobody wants a can of flat beer. The coating keeps it tasty. And if the taste of “bright green/yellow battery acid” is particularly appealing to you, the coating tested in Laperle’s flavor room also deserves some credit. The name Ball probably makes you think of glass jars. Technically, they’re Mason jars, stamped with the name Ball. Your mother probably had some in the pantry. Ball jars go back to 1882, when the five Ball brothers—Frank, Edmund, George, Lucius, and William—started making glass jars in Buffalo, New York. For marketing purposes, they began growing their mustaches shortly thereafter.


pages: 423 words: 118,002

The Boom: How Fracking Ignited the American Energy Revolution and Changed the World by Russell Gold

accounting loophole / creative accounting, activist fund / activist shareholder / activist investor, activist lawyer, addicted to oil, Alan Greenspan, American energy revolution, Bakken shale, Bernie Sanders, Buckminster Fuller, California energy crisis, Carl Icahn, clean water, corporate governance, corporate raider, cotton gin, electricity market, energy security, energy transition, financial engineering, hydraulic fracturing, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), man camp, margin call, market fundamentalism, Mason jar, North Sea oil, off-the-grid, oil shale / tar sands, oil shock, peak oil, precautionary principle, Project Plowshare, risk tolerance, rolling blackouts, Ronald Reagan, seminal paper, shareholder value, Silicon Valley, Upton Sinclair

As Miller got older, he graduated to working with sledgehammers, pounding the bits after they were heated. By the time he got to college, he had started driving trucks. It was a job he would keep for eight years as he worked his way through college and then law school. Miller’s background helped him connect with jurors. He came across as a regular guy, with a theatrical flair. He once opened a Mason jar filled with hydrogen sulfide to give the courtroom a whiff of the noxious rotten-egg smell to which his clients had been exposed. A juror vomited, and the court had to recess, with the courtroom windows opened to clear out the air. In 1994 Miller joined a lawsuit against Mitchell Energy. Not long before, Carrie Baran, a Wise County resident, had called up Gardere & Wynne, a sizable Texas-based law firm that typically represented companies charged with oil-field pollution.


pages: 407 words: 113,198

The Secret Life of Groceries: The Dark Miracle of the American Supermarket by Benjamin Lorr

activist fund / activist shareholder / activist investor, Affordable Care Act / Obamacare, barriers to entry, Boeing 747, Brownian motion, carbon footprint, collective bargaining, food miles, Ford Model T, global supply chain, hiring and firing, hive mind, independent contractor, Internet Archive, invention of the wheel, inventory management, Isaac Newton, Kanban, low skilled workers, Mason jar, obamacare, off grid, race to the bottom, Ralph Nader, risk tolerance, Ronald Reagan, Silicon Valley, supply-chain management, Toyota Production System, transatlantic slave trade, Upton Sinclair, vertical integration, Wayback Machine, Whole Earth Catalog, women in the workforce

The fact that the authenticity itself is so splintered, contradictory, and chaotic is almost incidental to our craving for it. It is personal: one man’s specialty is another man’s scorn. But like many things personal, the effect of seeing it all smashed side by side in a convention center is vaguely debasing. There are vomitous streams of comfort and nostalgia—every trope of Americana, Mason jars and aprons, bonnets and barns—colliding with equally vomitous visions of the techno-future—a sphere of gelato pulled by tongs from a cauldron of liquid nitrogen, marshmallows cut so aggressively square, as if by laser, their form is basically a middle finger to the whole concept of the s’more. And then there are hot sauces.


pages: 494 words: 128,801

Battle: The Story of the Bulge by John Toland

always be closing, Mason jar, the market place

Across the path is a small monument built by the people of Meyerode. On it in English (mistaking his rank) they have chiseled, "In January 1945 died here in heroic struggles by the German Offensive Eric Fisher Wood Captain U.S. Army." Every day some villager walks to the monument and puts fresh flowers in a Mason jar. There are other monuments in the Ardennes too—the thousands of foxholes, dotting the countryside like open graves. These holes still tell the story of the battle. In them can be found rotting ration cans, gas masks, rifle clips, bits of camouflage material, boots, and even occasionally the pitiful remains of a human being, forgotten for many years.


pages: 419 words: 125,977

Factory Girls: From Village to City in a Changing China by Leslie T. Chang

anti-communist, Deng Xiaoping, estate planning, fake news, financial independence, Great Leap Forward, index card, invention of writing, job-hopping, land reform, Mason jar, mass immigration, new economy, PalmPilot, Pearl River Delta, risk tolerance, Shenzhen special economic zone , special economic zone, vertical integration

Metal carts barreled through, forcing the human pile to rearrange itself every few minutes. The carts sold chicken legs and warm beer and hot dogs skewered on sticks. The vendors called out: Hot milk, hot milk, good for you. Only the well-off bought food on the train. Most people had carried their own—hard-boiled eggs and wafer cookies and mason jars filled with green tea so cloudy that algae could grow in it. At 10:45, a sweeper came through. We had been on board only three hours, but she pushed before her a mountain of peanut shells, orange peels, and empty plastic bottles. Nobody on earth generates trash faster than the traveling Chinese.


Entangled Life: How Fungi Make Our Worlds, Change Our Minds & Shape Our Futures by Merlin Sheldrake

Anthropocene, Apollo 11, biofilm, buy low sell high, carbon footprint, CRISPR, crowdsourcing, cuban missile crisis, dark matter, deep learning, discovery of penicillin, Easter island, experimental subject, Fellow of the Royal Society, Isaac Newton, Kickstarter, late capitalism, low earth orbit, Mason jar, meta-analysis, microbiome, moral panic, NP-complete, phenotype, randomized controlled trial, Ronald Reagan, seminal paper, TED Talk, the built environment, Thomas Bayes, Thomas Malthus, traveling salesman, two and twenty

For (the real) Stamets, a surge of interest in fungi could fuel the development of mycological technologies that might “help save the planet that’s in jeopardy.” Oyster mushroom, Pleurotus ostreatus When I showed up at Starship Agarikon, I found Stamets sitting on the deck fiddling around with a mason jar and a blue plastic dish. It was the prototype for a bee feeder he had invented. The jar dribbled sugar water laced with fungal extracts into the dish, and bees crawled through a chute to get to it. It was his latest venture; a seventh way that mushrooms could help save the world. Even by Stamets’s standards, this project was a big headline.


pages: 392 words: 124,069

Finding the Mother Tree: Discovering the Wisdom of the Forest by Suzanne Simard

air gap, Anthropocene, biofilm, British Empire, clean water, company town, Easter island, government statistician, Mason jar, New Journalism, Skype, trade route, zero-sum game

I pressed the central xylem—all that now remained of the peeled stem—through the tiny hole I’d poked through the middle of a quarter-sized rubber stopper. The rest, shoots and needles, hung upside down from the bottom of the stopper. I inserted the rubber stopper into a quarter-sized hole drilled into the middle of the heavy screw-top lid of the pressure bomb, then stuffed the fluffy shoot inside the gas chamber, which was the size of a mason jar, and screwed the lid down tight. The tree looked like a bonsai hanging upside down inside a wide-mouthed wine carafe. I shined my light on the top of the screwed-down lid and was happy to see the piece of peeled xylem wood sticking straight into the air like a toothpick. Dad stared with astonishment while I screwed the tube attached to the small cylinder of nitrogen gas tightly into the pressure chamber and twisted the knob to listen for the gas.


pages: 411 words: 122,655

The Awoken: A Novel by Katelyn Monroe Howes

Black Lives Matter, blue-collar work, clean water, crowdsourcing, fulfillment center, life extension, lock screen, Mason jar, messenger bag, off grid, Silicon Valley, stem cell

Our meeting was eventually interrupted with an urgent matter that Wade had to see to. I walked out of the tent in a stupor, relishing the comforting glow of Max’s phone. The picture on the lock screen was from my best friend Andy’s twenty-third birthday party. We were in her backyard. Edison bulb string lights, mason jars, and recycled wine bottles filled with flowers intimately decorated the lush garden. A real Pinterest wet dream of early-twenty-somethings trying to play adult and have a cocktail party. The rim of a champagne glass was at the bottom of the frame. I’d given Andy one of those karaoke microphones for her birthday, so for most of the party we belted out Adele and Disney songs while Max mainly stuck to Garth Brooks.


pages: 505 words: 142,118

A Man for All Markets by Edward O. Thorp

"RICO laws" OR "Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations", 3Com Palm IPO, Alan Greenspan, Albert Einstein, asset allocation, Bear Stearns, beat the dealer, Bernie Madoff, Black Monday: stock market crash in 1987, Black Swan, Black-Scholes formula, book value, Brownian motion, buy and hold, buy low sell high, caloric restriction, caloric restriction, carried interest, Chuck Templeton: OpenTable:, Claude Shannon: information theory, cognitive dissonance, collateralized debt obligation, Credit Default Swap, credit default swaps / collateralized debt obligations, diversification, Edward Thorp, Erdős number, Eugene Fama: efficient market hypothesis, financial engineering, financial innovation, Garrett Hardin, George Santayana, German hyperinflation, Glass-Steagall Act, Henri Poincaré, high net worth, High speed trading, index arbitrage, index fund, interest rate swap, invisible hand, Jarndyce and Jarndyce, Jeff Bezos, John Bogle, John Meriwether, John Nash: game theory, junk bonds, Kenneth Arrow, Livingstone, I presume, Long Term Capital Management, Louis Bachelier, low interest rates, margin call, Mason jar, merger arbitrage, Michael Milken, Murray Gell-Mann, Myron Scholes, NetJets, Norbert Wiener, PalmPilot, passive investing, Paul Erdős, Paul Samuelson, Pluto: dwarf planet, Ponzi scheme, power law, price anchoring, publish or perish, quantitative trading / quantitative finance, race to the bottom, random walk, Renaissance Technologies, RFID, Richard Feynman, risk-adjusted returns, Robert Shiller, rolodex, Sharpe ratio, short selling, Silicon Valley, Stanford marshmallow experiment, statistical arbitrage, stem cell, stock buybacks, stocks for the long run, survivorship bias, tail risk, The Myth of the Rational Market, The Predators' Ball, the rule of 72, The Wisdom of Crowds, too big to fail, Tragedy of the Commons, uptick rule, Upton Sinclair, value at risk, Vanguard fund, Vilfredo Pareto, Works Progress Administration

The Kesters’ oldest boy, strapping twentysomething Marvin, would carry me around on his shoulders. My mother, along with the women of the household, Marvin’s pretty sister Edna Mae, their mother, and their aunt May, would preserve massive quantities of fruits and vegetables. In our basement back home my father built racks for the rubber-sealed mason jars of corn, peaches, and apricots that we brought back. Then there were the rows of fruit jellies, jams, and preserves in glasses sealed with a layer of paraffin on top. This cornucopia would last us well into the next year. My father helped Marvin and his father, Old Man Kester, with the work of the farm, and sometimes I tagged along.


pages: 397 words: 131,375

Sing Backwards and Weep: The Sunday Times Bestseller by Mark Lanegan

clean water, Mason jar, Ronald Reagan, upwardly mobile

He peered at the crack pipes and spoons on the table I hadn’t had time to clean up and the mound of used syringes on the floor in the corner, probably two feet high. “Sit down,” he said. “I’m gonna take a quick look around.” Officer Davis stuck his head into the other room where Cyril was out cold, facedown on the bare mattress. A dirty mason jar half-filled with bright red balloons of heroin sat in a large flowerpot alongside a huge rotting cactus near his head. The cop looked back over his shoulder. “Is he dead?” “No, sir, just asleep.” He pulled up a chair and sat across from me at the coffee table. “I’m not here to bust you for whatever you guys are doing up in this place.


pages: 420 words: 135,569

Imaginable: How to See the Future Coming and Feel Ready for Anything―Even Things That Seem Impossible Today by Jane McGonigal

2021 United States Capitol attack, Airbnb, airport security, Alvin Toffler, augmented reality, autism spectrum disorder, autonomous vehicles, availability heuristic, basic income, biodiversity loss, bitcoin, Black Lives Matter, blockchain, circular economy, clean water, climate change refugee, cognitive bias, cognitive dissonance, Community Supported Agriculture, coronavirus, COVID-19, CRISPR, cryptocurrency, data science, decarbonisation, digital divide, disinformation, Donald Trump, drone strike, Elon Musk, fake news, fiat currency, future of work, Future Shock, game design, George Floyd, global pandemic, global supply chain, Greta Thunberg, income inequality, index card, Internet of things, Jane Jacobs, Jeff Bezos, Kickstarter, labor-force participation, lockdown, longitudinal study, Mason jar, mass immigration, meta-analysis, microbiome, Minecraft, moral hazard, open borders, pattern recognition, place-making, plant based meat, post-truth, QAnon, QR code, remote working, RFID, risk tolerance, School Strike for Climate, Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence, self-driving car, Silicon Valley, Silicon Valley startup, Snapchat, social distancing, stem cell, TED Talk, telepresence, telepresence robot, The future is already here, TikTok, traumatic brain injury, universal basic income, women in the workforce, work culture , Y Combinator

Already today, social media is full of influencers living their best zero-waste lives. The most followed zero-waste influencers have figured out how to reduce their personal trash output to just one bag or less per year, despite living in garbage-rich countries like the US and the UK. They post photos of their impressively tiny annual trash output, often squeezed into a single mason jar for a family of four, to inspire others. And they share practical tips for zero-waste cooking, cleaning, traveling, parenting, beauty, and fashion on sites like Going Zero Waste, the Zero Waste Family, and Trash Is for Tossers. (If you’re looking for ideas to inspire your journal entries from the future about how you might adapt to the 2033 scenario, these sites are a great place to spark your imagination.)13 It takes a certain amount of privilege to live a zero-waste lifestyle today.


pages: 373 words: 132,377

Ten Steps to Nanette: A Memoir Situation by Hannah Gadsby

autism spectrum disorder, Berlin Wall, COVID-19, Elon Musk, emotional labour, fake it until you make it, imposter syndrome, Mason jar, microdosing, moral panic, Nelson Mandela, neurotypical, rolodex, Saturday Night Live

In 2014, making fun of hipsters had become something of a comedy hack subject, though to be fair, I’d been hostile to the “hipster aesthetic” long before it was cool, but I don’t like to brag about it because that is such a hipster thing to say. I hated the way hipster businesses would steal survival strategies from the economically helpless and then charge a fortune for whatever service they were hocking—in this case it was serving food on chipped and mismatched plates, and hot beverages in mason jars. When I was a kid, we drank out of vegemite jars because I was one of five kids, and when glasses broke there was not enough money to buy more. I hated Fletcher the moment I saw him dancing around behind the counter doing nothing but looking busy. He was wearing a too-small knitted jumper with Garfield on it; the stitch was coming loose on the shoulder.


pages: 479 words: 140,421

Vanishing New York by Jeremiah Moss

activist lawyer, back-to-the-city movement, Bernie Sanders, big-box store, Black Lives Matter, Bonfire of the Vanities, bread and circuses, Broken windows theory, complexity theory, creative destruction, David Brooks, deindustrialization, Donald Trump, East Village, food desert, gentrification, global pandemic, housing crisis, illegal immigration, invisible hand, Jane Jacobs, junk bonds, late capitalism, Lewis Mumford, market fundamentalism, Mason jar, McMansion, means of production, megaproject, military-industrial complex, mirror neurons, Naomi Klein, neoliberal agenda, New Economic Geography, new economy, New Urbanism, Occupy movement, place-making, plutocrats, Potemkin village, RAND corporation, rent control, rent stabilization, Richard Florida, Ronald Reagan, Skype, starchitect, the built environment, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, the High Line, The Spirit Level, trickle-down economics, urban decay, urban renewal, W. E. B. Du Bois, white flight, young professional

In one commercial, played on movie screens across town, dozens of denim-clad hipster types cavort while an artfully scratchy, antiqued recording plays Whitman’s “Pioneers, O Pioneers!” We must march my darlings, we must bear the brunt of danger, We the youthful sinewy races, all the rest on us depend, Pioneers! O pioneers! It is no coincidence that the artisanal culture of the new Brooklyn so much resembles Olde-Timey America, with its rustic everything, its mason jar picklings, its classes on how to sharpen a felling axe, its heavy-duty denim aprons (for your leisure-time blacksmithing), and its beards. Good Lord, its superabundance of nineteenth-century beards. For the record, I like a good beard, but I’m not going to deny that something’s being signified. In their copious facial hair, the new men of Brooklyn look like colonists.


pages: 547 words: 148,732

How to Change Your Mind: What the New Science of Psychedelics Teaches Us About Consciousness, Dying, Addiction, Depression, and Transcendence by Michael Pollan

1960s counterculture, Abraham Maslow, Albert Einstein, Anton Chekhov, Burning Man, cognitive dissonance, conceptual framework, crowdsourcing, dark matter, Day of the Dead, Douglas Engelbart, East Village, experimental subject, Exxon Valdez, Golden Gate Park, Google Earth, Haight Ashbury, Howard Rheingold, Internet Archive, John Markoff, John Perry Barlow, Kevin Kelly, Marshall McLuhan, Mason jar, Menlo Park, meta-analysis, microdosing, military-industrial complex, moral panic, Mother of all demos, off-the-grid, overview effect, placebo effect, radical decentralization, Ralph Waldo Emerson, randomized controlled trial, reality distortion field, Ronald Reagan, Salesforce, satellite internet, scientific mainstream, scientific worldview, selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI), sensible shoes, Silicon Valley, Skype, Steve Jobs, Stewart Brand, sugar pill, TED Talk, the scientific method, theory of mind, Thomas Bayes, Whole Earth Catalog

I also had my own personal reason for steering clear of psychedelics: a painfully anxious adolescence that left me (and at least one psychiatrist) doubting my grip on sanity. By the time I got to college, I was feeling sturdier, but the idea of rolling the mental dice with a psychedelic drug still seemed like a bad idea. Years later, in my late twenties and feeling more settled, I did try magic mushrooms two or three times. A friend had given me a Mason jar full of dried, gnarly Psilocybes, and on a couple of memorable occasions my partner (now wife), Judith, and I choked down two or three of them, endured a brief wave of nausea, and then sailed off on four or five interesting hours in the company of each other and what felt like a wonderfully italicized version of the familiar reality.


pages: 462 words: 151,805

Gonzo: The Life of Hunter S. Thompson by Corey Seymour, Johnny Depp, Jann S. Wenner

Bonfire of the Vanities, buy low sell high, Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, Golden Gate Park, Haight Ashbury, Mason jar, New Journalism, Norman Mailer, Ralph Nader, rolodex, Saturday Night Live, Seymour Hersh, South China Sea, South of Market, San Francisco, Y2K

The event had happened between the kitchen and the garage, and presumably the search warrant was to be the location of the crime, but they went down into the wardrobe, where they discovered a shotgun that was approximately twelve inches long. And they’re on the phone about it—is it exactly twelve, or twelve and under? They took apart the dryers, thinking that he had something hidden up in the little holes. Eventually they slammed the refrigerator door and something toppled out behind the refrigerator, and they found a mason jar of pot—and when Hunter found out about this, he said, “Oh, I lost that twelve years ago.” In his bedroom they found a Bic pen with the works taken out. Maybe there was a little white powder in it. They took that, and they found a film canister with a blue pill. They also went through a filing cabinet and found a little file called “Juan.”


pages: 590 words: 156,001

Fodor's Oregon by Fodor's Travel Guides

Airbnb, bike sharing, BIPOC, car-free, Kickstarter, Lyft, Mason jar, messenger bag, off grid, off-the-grid, QR code, ride hailing / ride sharing, Rosa Parks, tech bro, tech worker, Uber and Lyft, uber lyft, walkable city, Wall-E, white flight, white picket fence, Works Progress Administration

., Northeast P 503/249–3983, 888/249–3983 w mcmenamins.com/kennedy-school a 57 rooms X No Meals. n Nightlife BARS AND LOUNGES The Bye and Bye COCKTAIL LOUNGES | An Alberta go-to specializing in creative drinks (sample the house favorite, the Bye and Bye, a refreshing concoction of peach vodka, peach bourbon, lemon, cranberry juice, and soda served in a Mason jar) and vegan fare, Bye and Bye has a big covered patio and a festive dining room. E 1011 N.E. Alberta St., Alberta Arts District P 503/281–0537 w thebyeandbye.com. HExpatriate COCKTAIL LOUNGES | Operated by Kyle Webster and his wife, celeb-chef partner Naomi Pomeroy, this intimate, candlelit spot has a devoted following for its balanced, boozy cocktails and addictively delicious Asian bar snacks, like Burmese coconut noodles and Laotian-inspired ahi tacos.


pages: 548 words: 174,644

Boyd: The Fighter Pilot Who Changed the Art of War by Robert Coram

Alvin Toffler, desegregation, inventory management, Iridium satellite, Joseph Schumpeter, lateral thinking, Mason jar, Neil Armstrong, RAND corporation, Ronald Reagan, Thomas Kuhn: the structure of scientific revolutions, Toyota Production System, traveling salesman

They come out of the sun and attack an enemy when he is blind. They sneak up behind or underneath or “bounce” the enemy from above or flop into position on his tail—his sixo’clock position—and “tap” him before he knows they are there. That is why fighter pilots jink and weave and dart about like water bugs in a mason jar. They never hold a heading or a position longer than six or eight seconds. Aerial combat is brutally unforgiving. To come in second place is to die, usually in a rather spectacular manner. Most casualties never know they are targets until they are riddled with bullets, covered with flames, and on the way to creating a big hole in the ground.


pages: 519 words: 160,846

One Day in December: Celia Sánchez and the Cuban Revolution by Nancy Stout

back-to-the-land, disinformation, land reform, Mason jar, union organizing, urban planning

In the mountains, however, she began to make copies of Fidel’s letters and started keeping her own notes; she began to develop the collection, starting with herself and Fidel first, then, within a month or two, requested materials from the other commanders. Some records, at her suggestion, were buried in mason jars, and these, according to the curator of Celia’s documents, Nelsy Babiel, still turn up under farmers’ plows in the Sierra Maestra spring. 37. The Florida Story CONSEQUENCES OF THE REVOLUTION persist in nearly every Cuban family. When the prisoners taken at the Bay of Pigs finally left Cuba in late December 1962, Celia’s sister Chela and her husband, Pedro Álvarez, were on the same boat, emigrating to Florida.


pages: 618 words: 159,672

Fodor's Rome: With the Best City Walks and Scenic Day Trips by Fodor's Travel Publications Inc.

call centre, Donald Trump, flag carrier, gentrification, glass ceiling, haute couture, haute cuisine, Honoré de Balzac, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, low cost airline, Mason jar, mega-rich, messenger bag, Murano, Venice glass, retail therapy, starchitect, urban planning, young professional

. | Average cost: €80 | Via della Lupa 29/b, Spagna | 00186 | 06/6873750 | www.toula.it | Reservations essential | Closed Sun. and Aug. No lunch Mon. and Sat. GiNa. $ | CAFÉ | “Homey minimalism” isn’t a contradiction at this whitewashed cafè with a modern edge. The block seats and sleek booths, the single flowers in Mason jars, white chandeliers, and multiplicity of mirrors make this small but multilevel space a tiny gem tucked away on the street leading from Piazza di Spagna. With a menu ranging from various bruschettas to interesting mixed salads, sandwiches, and pastas, this is a top spot for a light lunch or an aperitivo that won’t break the bank in this high-end neighborhood.


pages: 667 words: 186,968

The Great Influenza: The Story of the Deadliest Pandemic in History by John M. Barry

Albert Einstein, Brownian motion, centralized clearinghouse, conceptual framework, coronavirus, discovery of penicillin, double helix, Edward Jenner, Fellow of the Royal Society, germ theory of disease, index card, Louis Pasteur, Marshall McLuhan, Mason jar, means of production, scientific management, seminal paper, statistical model, the medium is the message, the scientific method, traveling salesman, women in the workforce

In the laboratory Avery and Dochez took the lead. They worked in simple laboratories with simple equipment. Each room had a single deep porcelain sink and several worktables, each with a gas outlet for a Bunsen burner and drawers underneath. The tabletop space was filled with racks of test tubes, simple mason jars, petri dishes—droppers for various dyes and chemicals, and tin cans holding pipettes and platinum loops. On the same tabletop investigators performed nearly all their work: inoculating, bleeding, and dissecting animals. Also on the tabletop was a cage for the occasional animal kept as a pet. In the middle of the room were incubators, vacuum pumps, and centrifuges.


Frommer's San Francisco 2012 by Matthew Poole, Erika Lenkert, Kristin Luna

airport security, Albert Einstein, Bay Area Rapid Transit, Blue Bottle Coffee, California gold rush, car-free, centre right, Chuck Templeton: OpenTable:, El Camino Real, gentrification, glass ceiling, Golden Gate Park, Haight Ashbury, high-speed rail, Loma Prieta earthquake, machine readable, Mason jar, Maui Hawaii, McDonald's hot coffee lawsuit, off-the-grid, place-making, Port of Oakland, post-work, San Francisco homelessness, sensible shoes, Silicon Valley, South of Market, San Francisco, Torches of Freedom, transcontinental railway, urban renewal, Works Progress Administration, young professional

While the menu changes regularly, expect to see similar offerings to artichoke terrine, beet boudin noir, and turnip apple soup as smaller starters. The beef cheek and oxtail burger; slow-cooked farm egg with fried farro, chicken, and sprouts; and Manila clams are popular orders for the main event. Desserts, served in mason jars, are not only artfully presented but even more delicious than they look. For example, panna cotta was never my favorite—until I discovered Plum, which serves it at the perfect consistency with a glaze of quince compote and thyme on top. 2214 Broadway (at Grand Ave.). 510/444-7586. www.plumoakland.com.


May We Be Forgiven by A. M. Homes

anti-communist, Burning Man, dumpster diving, friendly fire, if you build it, they will come, Kickstarter, lateral thinking, Mason jar, Nelson Mandela, off-the-grid, Ronald Reagan, Skype, South China Sea

And then he gives me a kind of a hug, like how maybe he once saw a kid on a TV show hug a grown-up, or like something from Two and a Half Men that would be punctuated by a guffaw from the laugh track. “Let’s do it again soon,” he says, exiting. That evening, while looking for something, I find myself in the basement. It’s like a multigenerational storehouse of stuff, skis, golf clubs, tennis racquets, sprinklers, old garden hoses, boxes of glass Mason jars, a good amount of which I suspect was left here by the previous owners and somehow memorialized by George and Jane as ephemera from another era. I decide to get rid of it all. Four hours later, with a dozen giant green plastic bags dragged to the curb and an overflowing blue recycle bin, I feel as though I’ve mucked out a stall.


pages: 1,007 words: 181,911

The 4-Hour Chef: The Simple Path to Cooking Like a Pro, Learning Anything, and Living the Good Life by Timothy Ferriss

Airbnb, Atul Gawande, Blue Bottle Coffee, Buckminster Fuller, Burning Man, confounding variable, correlation does not imply causation, crowdsourcing, deliberate practice, digital nomad, en.wikipedia.org, Golden Gate Park, happiness index / gross national happiness, haute cuisine, Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, Isaac Newton, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Kevin Kelly, Kickstarter, language acquisition, Loma Prieta earthquake, loss aversion, Louis Pasteur, Mahatma Gandhi, Marc Andreessen, Mark Zuckerberg, Mason jar, microbiome, off-the-grid, Parkinson's law, Paul Buchheit, Paul Graham, Pepsi Challenge, Pepto Bismol, Ponzi scheme, Ralph Waldo Emerson, San Francisco homelessness, Silicon Valley, Skype, spaced repetition, Stephen Hawking, Steve Jobs, TED Talk, the High Line, Y Combinator

Not only are pine nuts wicked expensive, they also cause severe allergic reactions in many people. We’ll use cashews instead. I blend everything at once, but for a new knife skill, chiffonade the basil immediately before blending (see pics, below). I love this pesto and will regularly store it in the freezer in Ball or Kerr mason jars. To thaw, leave the jar in a warm-water bath for 10 minutes. This pesto is good on any protein. Especially great on: Salads Eggs - BONUS POINTS (+2) HOW TO CHIFFONADE BASIL OR ANY LEAVES BIG ENOUGH - GARLIC AIOLI (Jeffrey Zurofsky) 1 large egg yolk Juice of ½ lemon 1 T Dijon mustard 1 clove garlic ½ t kosher salt ¾ c (180 ml) grapeseed oil ½ c (120 ml) EVOO (but see details below) Cayenne pepper to taste Fancy mayo!


pages: 611 words: 186,716

The Diamond Age by Neal Stephenson

British Empire, clean water, dark matter, defense in depth, digital map, edge city, Just-in-time delivery, low earth orbit, Mason jar, Neal Stephenson, pattern recognition, pneumatic tube, sensible shoes, Silicon Valley, Socratic dialogue, South China Sea, the scientific method, Turing machine, wage slave

The assistant's assistant got the job of inserting all the shiny bolts and torque-wrenching them down. Then the assistant flicked a switch, and an old-fashioned vacuum pump whacked into life, making conversation impossible for a minute or two. During this time Hackworth looked around Dr. X's laboratory, trying to peg the century and in some cases even the dynasty of each item. A row of mason jars stood on a high shelf, filled with what looked like giblets floating in urine. Hackworth supposed that they were the gall bladders of now-extinct species, no doubt accruing value by the moment, better than any mutual fund. A locked gun cabinet and a primeval Macintosh desktop-publishing system, green with age, attested to the owner's previous forays into officially discouraged realms of behavior.


pages: 608 words: 184,703

Moon Oregon Trail Road Trip: Historic Sites, Small Towns, and Scenic Landscapes Along the Legendary Westward Route by Katrina Emery, Moon Travel Guides

Airbnb, bike sharing, California gold rush, car-free, crowdsourcing, desegregation, Donner party, glass ceiling, indoor plumbing, Kickstarter, Lyft, Mason jar, mass immigration, pez dispenser, ride hailing / ride sharing, Rosa Parks, trade route, transcontinental railway, Uber and Lyft, uber lyft, urban planning, Works Progress Administration

With delicate pink walls hand-painted with flowers, the space is a romantic dream. Bye and Bye (1011 NE Alberta St., 503/281-0537, www.thebyeandbye.com, noon-midnight daily) is a bastion of Portland hipness that serves up a vast menu of cocktails. Try the signature drink—made with peach vodka, peach bourbon, cranberry juice, and soda—served in a mason jar. Homemade infusions pair well with fresh ingredients, and if you’re hungry, you can’t go wrong with the Southern-inspired vegan menu. Enjoy it all on one of two patios—great for people-watching on Alberta Street—or the hip indoor space. Live Music The Doug Fir Lounge (830 E. Burnside St., 503/231-9663, www.dougfirlounge.com, $10-35) combines a lodge-like feel with retro mid-century style.


pages: 659 words: 190,874

Deep Nutrition: Why Your Genes Need Traditional Food by Catherine Shanahan M. D.

Albert Einstein, autism spectrum disorder, caloric restriction, caloric restriction, clean water, Community Supported Agriculture, disinformation, double helix, Drosophila, epigenetics, Firefox, Gary Taubes, haute cuisine, impulse control, longitudinal study, Mahatma Gandhi, Mason jar, meta-analysis, microbiome, mirror neurons, moral panic, mouse model, pattern recognition, phenotype, selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI), Simon Singh, smart cities, stem cell, the scientific method, traumatic brain injury, twin studies, upwardly mobile, wikimedia commons

TEN-MINUTE ITALIAN DRESSING If your heart and your kidneys are in good health, you don’t have to worry about salt. I mention this because many people worry about sodium, often under-seasoning their homemade salad dressings, which makes other family members reach for store-bought stuff, which is loaded with vegetable oil and pumped up with sugar and “natural flavorings.” I make this dressing in a small Mason jar with a tight lid. This way, I can emulsify the finished dressing with twenty seconds of vigorous shaking. 2/3 cup extra virgin olive oil 1/3 cup balsamic vinegar 5 drops roasted sesame seed oil 1 teaspoon prepared mustard 1/8 teaspoon raw honey (optional) 1/8 teaspoon dried Italian spices (Penzey’s spices are good) 1/2 teaspoon fresh-ground pepper 1 teaspoon sea salt, Himalayan salt, or other quality salt Place all ingredients in a jar with a tight-fitting lid and shake for twenty seconds.


pages: 693 words: 204,042

New York 2140 by Kim Stanley Robinson

Anthropocene, availability heuristic, back-to-the-land, Black-Scholes formula, Burning Man, central bank independence, creative destruction, credit crunch, crowdsourcing, decarbonisation, East Village, full employment, gentrification, happiness index / gross national happiness, hive mind, income inequality, invisible hand, Jane Jacobs, Ken Thompson, Kim Stanley Robinson, liquidity trap, Mason jar, mass immigration, megastructure, microbiome, music of the spheres, New Urbanism, offshore financial centre, Planet Labs, plutocrats, Ponzi scheme, precariat, quantitative easing, Reflections on Trusting Trust, rent-seeking, Social Justice Warrior, the built environment, too big to fail

It’s a Keynesian world, always has been.” I shrugged. “He was a trader, right?” She laughed. “I guess everybody’s a trader.” “I’m not so sure about that.” I unwrapped the foil and wire from the champagne bottle, very old-fashioned, very French, and then aimed the cork to the side and sent it flying to leeward. Poured her a mason jar glass and sipped from it myself before giving it to her. “Cheers,” she said, and clinked her jar to the bottle I was holding. Then after she had drunk about half her glass, and I was back to steering, or at least supervising the autopilot, she got another call. “Who’s this? Oh! Well, thank you very much.


pages: 612 words: 206,792

The Mask of Sanity: An Attempt to Clarify Some Issues About the So Called Psychopathic Personality by Hervey Cleckley

Charles Lindbergh, financial independence, Mason jar, traveling salesman

After a little shaking and shouting he aroused, blinked at her calmly, and acted as if he had been disturbed by some irresponsible person who must be treated as an indulgent grown person treats a child. In the house was also a half-dressed woman of frankly disreputable character whom he had brought with him. The rugs were stained with overturned drinks and bottles and Mason jars were scattered over the floors. Unwashed dishes were piled in stacks or littered broken about the rooms. Several disarranged beds were heaped with stale sheets. Here and there furniture was overturned or burned with cigarettes. “Sorry,” said Walter as if making gallant apology for having accidentally jostled a lady in a crowd, “I am made so miserable at home that I had to come in.”


pages: 893 words: 282,706

The Great Shark Hunt: Strange Tales From a Strange Time by Hunter S. Thompson

anti-communist, back-to-the-land, buy low sell high, complexity theory, computer age, cuban missile crisis, desegregation, Easter island, Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, Fillmore Auditorium, San Francisco, Francisco Pizarro, Golden Gate Park, Haight Ashbury, job automation, land reform, Mason jar, military-industrial complex, New Journalism, non-fiction novel, Norman Mailer, Ronald Reagan, urban decay, urban renewal, urban sprawl

He began to sneak out of the house through the servants' entrance and run a few blocks to a gas station where he kept a hopped-up '37 Ford with no fenders. . . and spend the rest of the night hanging around honky-tonk bars and truck stops, dressed in dirty overalls and a crusty green T-shirt with a Bardahl emblem on the back. He enjoyed cadging beers and belting whores around when they spurned his crude propositions. One night, after long haggling, he bought several mason jars full of home whiskey, which he drank while driving at high speed through the Beverly Hills area. When the old Ford finally threw a rod he abandoned it and called a taxi, which took him to his own automobile agency. He kicked down a side door, hot-wiped a convertible waiting for tune-up and drove out to Highway 101, where he got in a drag race with some hoodlums from Pasadena.


Coastal California by Lonely Planet

1960s counterculture, airport security, Albert Einstein, Asilomar, back-to-the-land, Bay Area Rapid Transit, Berlin Wall, bike sharing, Blue Bottle Coffee, buy and hold, California gold rush, call centre, car-free, carbon footprint, centre right, Chuck Templeton: OpenTable:, company town, Day of the Dead, Donner party, East Village, El Camino Real, Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, electricity market, Frank Gehry, gentrification, global village, Golden Gate Park, Haight Ashbury, haute cuisine, illegal immigration, Joan Didion, Khyber Pass, Kickstarter, Loma Prieta earthquake, low cost airline, machine readable, Mason jar, McMansion, military-industrial complex, Neil Armstrong, Northpointe / Correctional Offender Management Profiling for Alternative Sanctions, off-the-grid, rolling blackouts, Ronald Reagan, Silicon Valley, South of Market, San Francisco, stealth mode startup, Steve Wozniak, trade route, transcontinental railway, Upton Sinclair, urban sprawl, white picket fence, women in the workforce, working poor, Works Progress Administration, young professional, Zipcar

Sightglass Coffee CAFE (http://sightglasscoffee.com; 270 7th St; 7am-6pm Mon-Sat, 8am-6pm Sun) San Francisco’s newest cult coffee is roasted in a SoMa warehouse – follow the wafting aromas of Owl’s Howl Espresso, and sample their family-grown, high-end 100% Bourbon-shrub coffee. Bloodhound BAR (www.bloodhoundsf.com; 1145 Folsom St; 4pm-2am) The murder of crows painted on the ceiling is definitely an omen: nights at Bloodhound assume mythic proportions with top-shelf booze served in Mason jars and pool marathons. SF’s best food trucks often park out front; ask the barkeep to suggest a pairing. House of Shields BAR (39 New Montgomery St; 2pm-2am Mon-Fri, from 7pm Sat) Flash back a hundred years at this recently restored mahogany bar, with original c 1908 chandeliers hanging from high ceilings and old-fashioned cocktails without the frippery.


Northern California Travel Guide by Lonely Planet

Airbnb, Apple II, Asilomar, back-to-the-land, Bay Area Rapid Transit, big-box store, bike sharing, Burning Man, buy and hold, California gold rush, California high-speed rail, call centre, car-free, carbon credits, carbon footprint, clean water, company town, dark matter, Day of the Dead, Donald Trump, Donner party, East Village, El Camino Real, Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, Frank Gehry, friendly fire, gentrification, gigafactory, glass ceiling, Golden Gate Park, Google bus, Haight Ashbury, haute couture, haute cuisine, high-speed rail, housing crisis, Joan Didion, Kickstarter, Loma Prieta earthquake, Lyft, Mahatma Gandhi, Mark Zuckerberg, Mason jar, McMansion, means of production, Northpointe / Correctional Offender Management Profiling for Alternative Sanctions, off-the-grid, Peoples Temple, Port of Oakland, ride hailing / ride sharing, Ronald Reagan, San Francisco homelessness, Silicon Valley, Silicon Valley startup, South of Market, San Francisco, stealth mode startup, stem cell, Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, Stewart Brand, the built environment, trade route, transcontinental railway, uber lyft, Upton Sinclair, urban sprawl, white picket fence, Whole Earth Catalog, women in the workforce, working poor, Works Progress Administration, young professional

Make WestingCOCKTAIL BAR ( MAP GOOGLE MAP ; %510-251-1400; www.makewesting.com; 1741 Telegraph Ave; h4pm-2am; Z19th St Oakland) On weekends, people pack this Uptown hot spot, named for a Jack London short story, for its indoor bocce courts and eclectic cocktails. Toss back a 'Garden Gimlet' (gin, cucumber, basil and lime) and satiate the munchies with cilantro-and-habañero-infused popcorn or a mason jar of homemade pickled beets. TrappistPUB ( MAP GOOGLE MAP ; %510-238-8900; www.thetrappist.com; 460 8th St; hnoon-12:30am Sun-Thu, to 1:30am Fri & Sat; ZOakland 12th St City Center) Busting out of its original brick-and-wood-paneled shoe box into a second storefront and outdoor back patio, this place specialises in Belgian ales.


Eastern USA by Lonely Planet

1960s counterculture, active transport: walking or cycling, Affordable Care Act / Obamacare, Albert Einstein, Apollo 11, Bear Stearns, Berlin Wall, bike sharing, Bretton Woods, British Empire, car-free, carbon footprint, centre right, Charles Lindbergh, collective bargaining, congestion pricing, Cornelius Vanderbilt, cotton gin, cuban missile crisis, Day of the Dead, desegregation, Donald Trump, East Village, fake news, Fall of the Berlin Wall, Ford Model T, Frank Gehry, gentleman farmer, gentrification, glass ceiling, Guggenheim Bilbao, haute cuisine, Hernando de Soto, illegal immigration, immigration reform, information trail, interchangeable parts, jitney, Ken Thompson, Kickstarter, license plate recognition, machine readable, Mason jar, mass immigration, McMansion, megacity, Menlo Park, Neil Armstrong, new economy, New Urbanism, obamacare, Quicken Loans, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Ronald Reagan, Rosa Parks, Saturday Night Live, Silicon Valley, Skype, the built environment, the High Line, the payments system, three-martini lunch, transcontinental railway, union organizing, Upton Sinclair, upwardly mobile, urban decay, urban planning, urban renewal, urban sprawl, walkable city, white flight, Works Progress Administration, young professional

Entertainment Gip’s Place LIVE MUSIC (www.myspace.com/gipsjukejoint; 3101 Ave C, Bessemer) You’ll need to ask a local for directions to this tin-roof makeshift backyard shack in a dicey neighborhood in Bessemer, one of the only truly authentic juke joints left outside Mississippi. Gip, a gravedigger by day, opens the doors on Saturday only, when the place is shoulder-to-shoulder with blues fans come one come all. It’s BYOB but there’s no need – free moonshine is passed around in Mason jars, permitted by a legal loophole in Alabama that says it must be given away, not sold. Information Greater Birmingham Convention & Visitors Bureau ( 205-458-8000, 800-458-8085; www.sweetbirmingham.com; 2200 9th Ave N; 8:30am-5pm Mon-Fri) Tourist information. Getting There & Around The Birmingham International Airport (BHM; www.flybirmingham.com) is about 5 miles northeast of downtown.


pages: 1,280 words: 384,105

The Best of Best New SF by Gardner R. Dozois

back-to-the-land, Buckminster Fuller, Burning Man, call centre, Columbine, congestion charging, dark matter, Doomsday Book, double helix, Extropian, flag carrier, Future Shock, gravity well, hydroponic farming, Kim Stanley Robinson, language acquisition, lateral thinking, Mason jar, military-industrial complex, offshore financial centre, out of africa, pattern recognition, phenotype, pneumatic tube, Silicon Valley, slashdot, Stephen Hawking, telepresence, three-masted sailing ship, Turing machine, Turing test, Winter of Discontent, Y2K, zero-sum game

But that place is great, man. We can’t lose there.” Vinnie smiled, and it was a prison-guard smile, a Nazi smile. “If you lose, kid, after the Monsters get through with you, the Hellbenders are gonna have a little party.” He pointed over his shoulder to where something resembling testicles floated in alcohol in a mason jar on a shelf. “We’re putting five empty jars up there tomorrow. That’s what happens to people who get the Hellbenders involved without asking and then don’t come through when the pressure’s on. You know what I mean?” Leroy smiled. He left smiling. The smile was still frozen to his face as he walked down the street.


Southeast Asia on a Shoestring Travel Guide by Lonely Planet

active transport: walking or cycling, airport security, Alfred Russel Wallace, anti-communist, British Empire, call centre, car-free, carbon footprint, classic study, clean water, clockwatching, colonial rule, flag carrier, gentrification, Global Witness, Google Earth, Great Leap Forward, haute cuisine, indoor plumbing, Kickstarter, large denomination, low cost airline, Mason jar, megacity, period drama, restrictive zoning, retail therapy, Skype, South China Sea, spice trade, superstar cities, sustainable-tourism, the long tail, trade route, urban sprawl, white picket fence, women in the workforce

Drinking Bars range from peaceful, beachfront cocktail affairs where you can sip a mai tai while you watch the sunset to throbbing discos on the sand. Red Pirates BEACH BAR $$ (Angol) Way down at the south end of White Beach, this supremely mellow bar throws funky driftwood furniture onto the sand and best captures the spirit of ‘old Boracay’. Nigi Nigi Nu Noos BEACH BAR $$ (Station 2; happy hour 5-7pm) The legendary mason jars of Long Island iced tea – they’re two-for-one during happy hour – more than capably kick-start any evening. Jungle BEACH BAR $$ (Lagutan Beach) Isolated on a cove at the back side of the island, hippie, trippy Jungle bar is known for three-day full-moon parties and its notorious ‘F*** you Archie’ cocktail.


Frommer's California 2009 by Matthew Poole, Harry Basch, Mark Hiss, Erika Lenkert

airport security, Asilomar, Bay Area Rapid Transit, California gold rush, call centre, car-free, Charles Lindbergh, clean water, Columbine, Donald Trump, Donner party, East Village, El Camino Real, European colonialism, Frank Gehry, gentleman farmer, gentrification, Golden Gate Park, Haight Ashbury, high-speed rail, housing crisis, indoor plumbing, Joan Didion, machine readable, Mason jar, mass immigration, Maui Hawaii, post-work, retail therapy, rolling blackouts, Saturday Night Live, Silicon Valley, Skype, South of Market, San Francisco, sustainable-tourism, transcontinental railway, urban sprawl, white picket fence, Works Progress Administration, Y Combinator

Tupelo Junction Café SOUTHERN Most trendy restaurants have expiration dates, but the countrified Tupelo Junction has pr oven immune to such patterns. The unpretentious cafe, which produces Southern cuisine with a healthy California touch, is juxtaposed among the European labels and designer boutiques of State Street. Lemonade and mimosas ar e served up in mason jars, and J olly Ranchers ar e generously doled out with the bill. I f you’re in S anta Barbara long enough to only dine at Tupelo once, plan your pit stop for br unch: The pumpkin oatmeal waffle with candied walnuts and caramelized bananas is divine, and the apple beignets with cr ème anglaise aren’t to be taken lightly.


pages: 2,323 words: 550,739

1,000 Places to See in the United States and Canada Before You Die, Updated Ed. by Patricia Schultz

Albert Einstein, Alfred Russel Wallace, American Society of Civil Engineers: Report Card, Apollo 11, Apollo 13, Boeing 747, Bretton Woods, Burning Man, California gold rush, car-free, Charles Lindbergh, Columbine, company town, Cornelius Vanderbilt, cotton gin, country house hotel, David Sedaris, Day of the Dead, Donald Trump, East Village, El Camino Real, estate planning, Ford Model T, Frank Gehry, gentrification, glass ceiling, Golden Gate Park, Guggenheim Bilbao, Haight Ashbury, haute cuisine, indoor plumbing, interchangeable parts, Mars Rover, Mason jar, Maui Hawaii, Mikhail Gorbachev, Murano, Venice glass, Neil Armstrong, Nelson Mandela, new economy, New Urbanism, Norman Mailer, out of africa, Pepto Bismol, place-making, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Ronald Reagan, Rosa Parks, Saturday Night Live, scientific management, sexual politics, South of Market, San Francisco, Suez canal 1869, The Chicago School, three-masted sailing ship, transcontinental railway, traveling salesman, upwardly mobile, urban decay, urban planning, urban renewal, urban sprawl, wage slave, white picket fence, Works Progress Administration, Yogi Berra, éminence grise

It was built in 1884 by Pennsylvania doctor Frank Caldwell, who, enchanted by the vistas and convinced of the mineral waters’ healing powers, bought the property and relocated here, promoting the inn as a health resort. Across the street, the Log Cabin Restaurant and Deli dates to the early fur-trading days of the 1800s. Sip a hot spiced tea or a (nonalcoholic) Cabin Cooler served in a Mason jar and fill up on chili corn pone, platters of country-fried steak, or locally cured ham with red-eye gravy. Little River Canyon National Preserve features a 45-foot waterfall and dramatic gorge. Pack a lunch for a day trip through the scenic Little River Canyon National Preserve. The rugged 14,000-acre park is home to a 700-foot gorge, one of the deepest east of the Mississippi.


USA Travel Guide by Lonely, Planet

1960s counterculture, active transport: walking or cycling, Affordable Care Act / Obamacare, Albert Einstein, Apollo 11, Apollo 13, Asilomar, Bay Area Rapid Transit, Bear Stearns, Berlin Wall, Big bang: deregulation of the City of London, big-box store, bike sharing, Biosphere 2, Bretton Woods, British Empire, Burning Man, California gold rush, call centre, car-free, carbon footprint, centre right, Charles Lindbergh, Chuck Templeton: OpenTable:, congestion pricing, Cornelius Vanderbilt, cotton gin, cuban missile crisis, Day of the Dead, desegregation, Donald Trump, Donner party, Dr. Strangelove, East Village, edge city, El Camino Real, fake news, Fall of the Berlin Wall, feminist movement, Ford Model T, Frank Gehry, gentleman farmer, gentrification, glass ceiling, global village, Golden Gate Park, Guggenheim Bilbao, Haight Ashbury, haute couture, haute cuisine, Hernando de Soto, Howard Zinn, illegal immigration, immigration reform, information trail, interchangeable parts, intermodal, jitney, Ken Thompson, Kickstarter, license plate recognition, machine readable, Mars Rover, Mason jar, mass immigration, Maui Hawaii, McMansion, Menlo Park, military-industrial complex, Monroe Doctrine, Neil Armstrong, new economy, New Urbanism, obamacare, off grid, off-the-grid, Quicken Loans, Ralph Nader, Ralph Waldo Emerson, retail therapy, RFID, ride hailing / ride sharing, Ronald Reagan, Rosa Parks, Saturday Night Live, Silicon Valley, South of Market, San Francisco, starchitect, stealth mode startup, stem cell, supervolcano, the built environment, The Chicago School, the High Line, the payments system, three-martini lunch, trade route, transcontinental railway, union organizing, Upton Sinclair, upwardly mobile, urban decay, urban planning, urban renewal, urban sprawl, Virgin Galactic, walkable city, white flight, working poor, Works Progress Administration, young professional, Zipcar

Entertainment Gip’s Place LIVE MUSIC (www.myspace.com/gipsjukejoint; 3101 Ave C, Bessemer) You’ll need to ask a local for directions to this tin-roof makeshift backyard shack in a dicey neighborhood in Bessemer, one of the only truly authentic juke joints left outside Mississippi. Gip, a gravedigger by day, opens the doors on Saturday only, when the place is shoulder-to-shoulder with blues fans come one come all. It’s BYOB but there’s no need – free moonshine is passed around in Mason jars, permitted by a legal loophole in Alabama that says it must be given away, not sold. Information Greater Birmingham Convention & Visitors Bureau ( 205-458-8000, 800-458-8085; www.sweetbirmingham.com; 2200 9th Ave N; 8:30am-5pm Mon-Fri) Tourist information. Getting There & Around The Birmingham International Airport (BHM; www.flybirmingham.com) is about 5 miles northeast of downtown.