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Elon Musk shows off Starship prototype's rocket engine ahead of test fire (photo)

SpaceX founder and CEO Elon Musk just tweeted an image looking up at the belly of the latest Starship prototype, the SN4, which is on the test stand ahead of a key engine firing.




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Negocio Sucio: Falta de Equidad Menstrual en las Cárceles Colombianas

By Charlie Ruth Castro

Read this post in English

Vamos a hablar de menstruación, el proceso más natural y necesario para la buena salud reproductiva entre las mujeres, pero aquel que culturalmente nos han enseñado a aborrecer, ocultar o incluso a hacerle burla. Y por otro lado voy a hablar de un negocio sucio perpetrado por ciertos funcionarios del INPEC -la institución nacional a cargo de la política penitenciaria- en muchas de las cárceles de Colombia: el desvío de presupuestos para el suministro de toallas higiénicas ... More

The post Negocio Sucio: Falta de Equidad Menstrual en las Cárceles Colombianas appeared first on Our Bodies Ourselves.




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Book week 2019: David Adger's Language Unlimited

Welcome to the second review post of Book Week 2019. See the intro to Book Week 2019 to understand more about what I'm doing this week. Next up we have:

Language unlimited
the science behind our most creative power

by David Adger
Oxford University Press, 2019


This is a book for people who like to think about HOW THINGS WORK. It's a serious work of popular science writing, which carefully spells out the mysteries of syntax. And by mysteries, I mean things you've probably never even noticed about language. But once they're pointed out, you have to sit back and say "Whoa." Because even though you hadn't noticed these things, you know them. Remember a few years ago, when the internet was hopping with posts about how we subconsciously know which order to put adjectives in? That's kid's play compared with the stuff that Adger'll teach you about the things you know but don't know about.

Adger (who is Professor of Linguistics at Queen Mary University, London) describes the situation carefully, clearly, and engagingly, using copious examples and analogies to communicate some really subtle points. (I particularly liked the explanation of form versus function in language, which drew on the form versus the function of alcohol. Chin-chin!) He draws in evidence from neurology, psychology, and computer science to both corroborate his points and to introduce further questions about how language works.

As I said in the intro to Book week, I have not read all the books I'm reviewing absolutely cover-to-cover. In this case, of the ten chapters, I read 1–3, 7, and 10—and skimmed through the other chapters. The early chapters make the case that there's more to linguistic structure than meets the eye and that human linguistic abilities must consist of something special—they must be qualitatively different from the types of cognition that other animals use and that humans use in non-linguistic communication. Later ones cover issues like how children experience and acquire their first language and what happens when computers try to learn human language. Throughout, the examples feature Adger's partner Anson and his cat Lilly.  I almost feel like I know them now. Hi Anson and Lilly!

Adger makes clear from the start that his book makes a particular argument in favo(u)r of a particular way of explaining language's mysteries—and that particular way is a Chomskyan way. This means that he makes the case for a Universal Grammar that underlies all human language. I was struck by his willingness and ability to take this all the way for a lay audience. By chapter 9, he is explaining Merge, the key tool of Chomsky's Minimalist Program

Now, here I have to say: this is not the kind of linguistics I do. It's not just that I'm not a syntactician—though I have, from time to time, dipped my toe into theories grammatical. It's also that I lost faith in theoretical monotheism when I moved from a very Chomskyan undergraduate degree to a more ecumenical linguistics department for my (post)graduate studies. When I arrived for my PhD studies, the department wanted to know which syntactic theories I'd studied, so they could determine which courses I needed to take. I could not tell them. After four years of studying Chomskyan linguistics, I thought I had spent four undergraduate years studying "Syntax". No one had told me that I was studying a theory of syntax, just one among several theories.

Ever since, I have tended to agnosticism and s{c/k}epticism when it comes to syntactic theory. (This is probably how I ended up as not-a-syntactician; I don't know that it's possible to have a career in grammatical studies without adhering to one theoretical church or another.) Being a lexicologist has meant that I don't have to take sides on these things. And so I play around with different theories and see how they deal with the phenomena I study. When I listen to the evangelists, I listen warily. I tend to find that they oversimplify the approaches of competitor theories, and don't learn as much from them as they could (or, at least, sometimes don't give them credit for their contributions). This is all a very long explanation of why I skipped to chapter 7—the chapter where Adger responds to some non-Chomskyan ideas (mostly personified in the chapter by Joan Bybee).

So (mostly BrE*) all credit to Adger for spending a chapter on this, and for citing recent work in it. I generally thought his points were fair, but I did what I usually do in response to such theoretical take-downs: I thought "ok, but what about..." I do think he's right that some facts point to the existence of a Universal Grammar, but I also think it's not the only interesting part of the story, and that it's premature to discount arguments that explore the possibility that much of what happens in language learning is based in experience of language and general cognitive abilities. But then, I would think that.

I definitely recommend the book for people who are interested in the scientific approach to language, but I'd skip the final chapter (10). It is an oddly tacked-on bit about sociolinguistic phenomena, precisely the kinds of things that are not even approached in the theory the rest of the book has been arguing for.

I congratulate Adger on this strong work that makes extraordinarily abstract concepts clear.





P.S. Since I'm not doing Differences of the Day on Twitter this week, here's little chart of use of all credit to (frequency per million words) in the Corpus of Global Web-Based English, for good measure.





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Book Week 2019: David Shariatmadari's Don't Believe a Word

Welcome to the third review post of Book Week 2019. In the intro to Book Week 2019, I explain what I'm doing this week. In the end, there will be four posts. I thought there would be five, but one of the books has (orig. BrE) gone missing. Having had a day off yesterday, I will also have a day off tomorrow, so the final review will appear during the weekend. Probably.

Anyhow, today's book is:

Don't believe a word
the surprising truth about language

by David Shariatmadari
Norton, 2019 (N America)
W&N, 2019 (UK/RoW)


David Shariatmadari writes for the Guardian, often about language, and is one of the sensible journalists on the topic. The number of sensible journalists writing about language has really shot up in the past decade, and judging from reading their books, this is in part because of increasingly clear, public-facing work by academic linguists. (Yay, academic linguists!) But in Shariatmadari's case, the journalist is a linguist: he has a BA and MA in the subject. And it shows—in the best possible way. 

The book is a familiar genre: busting widely held language myths. If you've read books in this genre before, you probably don't need these myths busted. You probably know that linguistic change is natural, that the border between language and dialect is unfindable, that apes haven't really learned sign languages, and that no form of language is inherently superior to another. Nevertheless, you may learn something new, since Shariatmadari's tastes for linguistic research and theories is not always on the same wavelength as some other books directed at such a general audience.

Once again, I'm reviewing with a partial view of the book (this is the practical law of Book Week 2019). In this case, I've read chapters 1, 5, and 9 and skimmed through other bits. The introductory chapter gives us a bit of insight into Shariatmadari's conversion to full-blown linguist, as a reluctant student of Arabic who was quickly converted to admiration for the language and to the study of language as an insight into humanity. "It's not hyperbole to say that linguistics is the universal social science", he writes. "It intrudes into almost every area of knowledge."
UK cover

I chose to read chapter 5 because I'd had the pleasure of hearing him talk about its topic at a student conference recently: the popularity of "untranslatable word" lists. Goodness knows, I've contributed to them. What I liked about the talk was his detective work on the words themselves—some of the words and definitions presented in lists of 'untranslatables' are practically fictional. And yet, those of us who don't speak the language in question often eat up these lists because of our ethnocentric need to exotici{s/z}e others. This leads inevitably to discussion of linguistic relativism—the notion that the language you speak affects the way you think—and the bad, old (so-called) evidence for it and the newer evidence for something much subtler. The chapter then goes in a direction I wasn't expecting: introducing Natural Semantic Metalanguage (NSM), an interesting (but far from universally taught) approach to meaning that uses about 65 semantic building blocks to represent and compare meanings across languages. NSM adherents make the case that few, if any, words are truly equivalent across languages. But while any word in one language may have no single-word equivalent in another language, that doesn't mean those words are untranslatable. It just means that translating them can be a delicate and complicated thing.

US cover
The final chapter (9) takes the opposite view to David Adger's Language Unlimited (in my last review), and argues that the hierarchical (and human-specific) nature of linguistic structure need not be the product of an innate Universal Grammar, but instead could arise from the complexity of the system involved and humans' advanced social cognition. While Adger had a whole book for his argument, Shariatmadari has 30-odd pages, and so it's not really fair to compare them in terms of the depth of their argumentation, but still worth reading the latter to get a sense of how linguists and psychologists are arguing about these things.

Shariatmadari is a clear and engaging writer, and includes a good range of references and a glossary of linguistic terminology. If you know someone who still believes some language myths, this might be a good present for them. (Though in my experience, people don't actually like getting presents that threaten their worldview. I still do it, because I care more about myth-busting writers earning royalties than I care about linguistic chauvinists getting presents they want.) It would also make an excellent gift for A-level English and language students (and teachers) and others who might be future linguists. After they read it, send them my way. I love having myth-busted students.





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Cuidado com o Álcool Gel na Cozinha

Um pequeno lembrete para que todos tomem cuidado com álcool gel, principalmente na cozinha! Em época de Coronavírus, temos usado muito o produto nas mãos, em superfícies e embalagens. Apesar de muito eficiente para a higienização, é inflamável e muitas vezes suas chamas não são visíveis aos olhos!

O post Cuidado com o Álcool Gel na Cozinha apareceu primeiro em Cozinha do Bom Gosto.




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Torta de Liquidificador de Frango

A melhor receita de torta de liquidificador que já fiz! A massa é super fácil e leva poucos ingredientes! Te ensino ainda como fazer um recheio de frango que é rápido e prático! Bora fazer para dividir com a família? Rende uma torta grande ????

O post Torta de Liquidificador de Frango apareceu primeiro em Cozinha do Bom Gosto.




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Cone Trufado Torta de Limão

Nosso CONE TRUFADO TORTA DE LIMÃO é super refrescante e uma ótima ideia para quem quer vender doces! Vem aprender a fazer o recheio e a decoração! Ao final do vídeo, você confere a validade da receita e a sugestão do preço de venda!

O post Cone Trufado Torta de Limão apareceu primeiro em Cozinha do Bom Gosto.




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PUDIM GELADO DE COCO

Nosso Pudim Gelado de Coco não leva ovo, não vai ao fogo e nem ao forno! É super fácil de fazer: basta bater tudo no liquidificador! Você pode servir puro e geladinho ou colocar a calda da sua preferência! Anote os ingredientes!

O post PUDIM GELADO DE COCO apareceu primeiro em Cozinha do Bom Gosto.




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Despite relatively small numbers, more women are assuming leadership roles in the US fire service

It will come as no surprise to women in the fire service but the number of female firefighters in the U.S. remains relatively low, according to the most recent U.S. Fire Department Profile from NFPA. The newest data was released today on the heels of a




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Free webinar on “Fuel Load Survey Methodology in Buildings”

Free webinar on “Fuel Load Survey Methodology in Buildings” When: Thursday, April 2, 2020, 12:30-2:00 pm ET. Presenters: Dr. Negar Elhami-Khorasani, The State University of New York Buffalo, and Dr. Thomas Gernay, Johns Hopkins Whiting School




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Archivist releases shirts made from recycled hotel sheets

Sometimes, being disruptive is fashionable. As for Archivist, a sustainable clothing company, its business plan counts on being disruptive in the name of fashion and corporate responsibility. With this mission, Archivist has found a unique yet luxurious inspiration for a new line of tailored shirts — hotel sheets.[...]




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Costa Rican eco-lodge is made of reclaimed wood from a 100-year-old home

Costa Rican architectural firm Gussa has unveiled a peaceful eco-lodge located on the country's beautiful Caribbean coastline. Esquina Verde is a cozy rental accommodation made out of locally sourced materials and reclaimed wood salvaged from a 100-year-old home. Surrounded by lush vegetation and native wildlife, the lodge's multiple hammocks that hang from the thatched roofs make it an idyllic place to disconnect.[...]





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Recycled wind turbine blades proposed as a playscape for Burning Man

Washington-based architect and designer Michael Mannhard has unveiled designs for BladeYARD, a proposal for a Burning Man 2021 installation built from recycled wind turbine blades. Created as a visual warning of the effects of climate change and shortsighted solutions, the installation mimics a large-scale ruin with parts of the blades submerged in the sands of Nevada’s Black Rock Desert.[...]




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'Tiger King' drama overshadows abuse of captive tigers in U.S.

Netflix's wildly popular "Tiger King" documentary series has been progressively sweeping the nation since it first aired on March 20. As an outrageous, binge-worthy drama released when self-isolation and uncertainty were spreading around the world, the show certainly came at the right time to provide an escape from the news. Overnight, it seemed, conversations that didn’t revolve around the coronavirus or Joe Exotic were hard to come by. Photos of celebrities who’d visited the zoos were flooding the internet, Joe Exotic’s power-ballads were hitting it big on Spotify and even President Donald Trump was fielding questions about the gun-toting zookeeper[...]




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Grade II listed Victorian home undergoes a green renovation

London-based firm Will Gamble Architects has breathed new life into a dilapidated building in the small village of Gretton, U.K. The complex consisted of a Grade II listed Victorian house, a disused cattle shed and a set of ruins of a former parchment factory. Although the project presented several challenges, the architects managed to strategically incorporate the existing structures, as well as several reclaimed materials found onsite, into the new design in lieu of complete demolition.[...]




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This modular, off-grid design can adapt to any landscape

DIY home design is a life-long dream of many, and today's architects are making it easier than ever to build your own home without toiling for years. Genoa-based firm TEKE Architects has just unveiled the MU50, a modular off-grid home designed to be configurable to virtually any landscape. Using modules of prefabricated timber frames that can be connected in various layouts, the innovative design is meant to be incorporated into any landscape with minimal impact.[...]




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UNStudio installs new energy-generating facade for solar producer Hanwhas HQ

UNStudio has completed renovations of the Hanwha headquarters in Seoul — all without disrupting the building’s normal business operations. The impressive feat was achieved thanks to efficient and low-impact construction methods that the international design firm dubs “remodeling in place.” In addition to renovated interior spaces and a redesigned landscape, the Hanwha headquarters is now home to a completely new, energy-generating facade with integrated solar panels to express the company’s identity as an ambitious global leader in the solar panel industry. [...]




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Climate change could lead to dramatic decline in narwhals

Climate change is affecting everybody, even narwhals. These mysterious “unicorns of the sea” may decline by 25% by the end of this century, according to a new study.[...]




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Skate the streets in style on these handmade wood skateboards

With limited traffic on the roads, cruising down abandoned streets on a slick new skateboard can be a dream come true for many skateboarders. Thanks to Rustek's new collection of wooden skateboards, handcrafted out of sustainably sourced wood, we can all dream of popping sweet 180-degree ollies while soaring down the street.[...]




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Platitude Adjustment



Platitude Adjustment




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Zoom Will Finally Add End-To-End Encryption, But At A Cost

As there have been countless cases of Zoombombing in the recent weeks, the security in the video conferencing platform Zoom has been doubted by its users. In response to this, Zoom finally announced on Thursday that they will be implementing and offering end-to-end encryption.

With the acquisition of Keybase, a New York-based startup specializing in encrypted messaging and cloud services, Zoom will finally be able to make good on its claims of offering end-to-end encryption.
“We are excited to integrate Keybase’s team into the Zoom family to help us build end-to-end encryption that can reach current Zoom scalability,” CEO Eric Yuan said in a Zoom blog post on Thursday.

Unfortunately, not all Zoom users will benefit from the company’s new move, as the end-to-end encryption feature will only be available to users who have paid plans (which start at $14.99/month, by the way) on the video conferencing platform.

If a meeting’s host has enabled this feature, participants will be barred from joining by phone and cloud-based recording will be disabled. In Thursday’s blog post, Yuan emphasized that the feature will not store the encryption key on Zoom’s servers, so the company will not be able to see any part of the call.

What are your thoughts about this one?

(Image Credit: Zoom/ Wikimedia Commons)




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Dad: “Remind me again what you will do with a degree in conservation biology?”



This video is well-enhanced by the title. Bird Guy lives up to his name as he waits for his Evening Grosbeaks to come visit. Seems like a great life, but that hoodie will need laundering often. Worth it. -via Metafilter




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COVID-Themed Lures Target SCADA Sectors With Data Stealing Malware

A new malware campaign has been found using coronavirus-themed lures to strike government and energy sectors in Azerbaijan with remote access trojans (RAT) capable of exfiltrating sensitive documents, keystrokes, passwords, and even images from the webcam. The targeted attacks employ Microsoft Word documents as droppers to deploy a previously unknown Python-based RAT dubbed "PoetRAT" due to




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Critical Security Patches Released for Magento, Adobe Illustrator and Bridge

It's not 'Patch Tuesday,' but software giant Adobe today released emergency updates for three of its widely used products that patch dozens of newly discovered critical vulnerabilities. The list of affected software includes Adobe Illustrator, Adobe Bridge, and Magento e-commerce platform, containing a total of 35 vulnerabilities where each one of them is affected with multiple critical




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Download: 'Coronavirus Cyber Security for Management' Template for CISOs

The Coronavirus crisis introduces critical operational challenges to business continuity, placing high stress on organizations' management. As a result, CIOs and CISOs face a double challenge on the cyber risk front – apart from the new risks that the mass transfer of employees working remotely brings, capturing the management mindshare for further investments in security becomes harder than




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Trump Uses Coronavirus to Spread Racism

There is nothing like a global pandemic to unleash the forces of racism in society. Trump is now routinely calling the novel coronavirus strain “the Chinese virus.”




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17 Years Later: The Consequences of Invading Iraq

While the world is consumed with the terrifying coronavirus pandemic, on March 19 the Trump administration will be marking the 17th anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Iraq by ramping up the conflict there. After an Iran-aligned militia allegedly struck a U.S. base near Baghdad on March 11, the U.S. military carried out retaliatory strikes against five […]




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The Dem Primary is Over, and We Need Bernie Sanders to Lead on Health Care From the Senate

On Tuesday, I cast a joyless vote for the very much politically doomed Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders in the Illinois primary, in an elementary school where hushed whispers and fearful glances had replaced the normal din of an election day. There was no one standing just outside the perimeter hustling me to vote for this […]




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THE NEW CANADIAN GUN BAN

Our Canadian friends knew it was coming even before the spree killing in Nova Scotia. That atrocity just gave the Prohibitionists more blood in which to dance.  The RCMP has not yet made public exactly what firearms were involved in Read more




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Beloved Hobbies That Are Secretly The New 'Dad Things'

By Lydia Bugg  Published: May 07th, 2020 




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Disneyland Shanghai's Reopening Is A Sad Look At The Future Of Vacations

By Isaac Cabe  Published: May 07th, 2020 




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If Superheroes Had To Live In The Real World

By Andres Diplotti  Published: May 08th, 2020 




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Celebrity Pets Are Hanging On By A Thread

By Isaac Cabe  Published: May 08th, 2020 




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Twitter Thread: Positive Psychologist Explains Brains Tripping Out

Alexis Hockley hooked it up with a quick and informative thread on what's potentially taking place in our brains right now, as result of the strange shift in external circumstances. Now more than ever is a time to spread that love and kindness. 




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Shady Leasing Agent Learns About Lease From Tenant

Ah, yes, a fine example of a sketchy leasing agent getting bested by a truly, professional revenge. This tenant was well equipped to educate the leasing agent on the finer details of how the lease worked. Makes you wonder how many more unsuspecting tenants that leasing agent might've fooled. Well, not this one.

Check out more juicy apartment drama with this story about a dude who was threatened by his landlord, and proceeded to go full Karen. 





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Back in my day, if you had a headache you had to walk 5 miles to get Rosemary and by the time you got there the headache was gone




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Girl Points the Irony of Sexism on the Internet With a Picture of Some Headphones

Real women have curvy headphones.





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The Power of Math, Ladies and Gentlement




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Nevada: Latest updates on coronavirus

The first COVID-19 death in Nevada was a man in his 60s with an underlying health condition.




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COVID-19 spread is fueled by 'stealth transmission'

Cases of COVID-19 that fly under the radar — without being diagnosed — appear to fuel the rapid spread of the disease.




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Colorado: Latest updates on coronavirus

More than 130 people in the state have been diagnosed with COVID-19, and one has died.




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Car Seat Headrest Review: Teens of Denial

  In a year where politicians are promising to make things great again, the same could possibly be said about rock music. Like America, rock may no longer be the center of attention, rock critics constantly looking for a savior to bring rock back into the mainstream. While rock has been great all this time (with great … Continue reading "Car Seat Headrest Review: Teens of Denial"




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LxL’s Top 10 Radiohead Songs

There are only a few acts in rock history that have been able to shape-shift and stay both relevant and innovative over a 20 year span. American chameleon Beck is certainly one, with his incredible new summer jam “Wow” certainly being an example of that, but Radiohead is the most notable from across the pond. Radiohead’s new … Continue reading "LxL’s Top 10 Radiohead Songs"




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Meal Prep Monday: Lazy Bread Pudding

Some times you want something sweet without all the work. Catwithseventoes share their recipe for Lazy Bread Pudding that will literally take a matter of minutes to make. You simply gather the ingredients and microwave. Easy peasy! This dish is a great breakfast or snack when you are on the run. You can also whip […]




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Craftster Featured Projects – Dedicated to the People Who Made It

Since February 2009, we have chosen 15 current Featured Projects from around Craftster. Ten years of amazing featured projects. Today, though, in lieu of the site closing, we are bringing you the final collection of Featured Projects for Craftster — ever. And today, we are not featuring current projects. Today, we are featuring a collection […]




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Carne Guisada (Braised Beef)

Melt in your mouth tender Mexican style stewed beef! There is just something magical about slowly braised/stewed beef; that long and slow simmering brings out all of it’s flavours! Many cultures have different versions of stewed beef and this carne guisada is a Mexican style version that is seasoned with cumin, black pepper, chilies, tomatoes...

Read On →

The post Carne Guisada (Braised Beef) appeared first on Closet Cooking.