1/2c (125ml) popcorn,
3 Tbsp (45ml) coconut oil, --vegetable will do, but coconut is better
1 tsp (5ml/5.5g) Flavicol -- yes, really, just buy a quart of it off Amazon
In an 8-10 quart or liter stock pot heat the oil to 420F/215C over medium-high heat, stirring or swirling the Flavicol into the oil once it's viscosity drops sufficiently. No thermometer? heat with three kernels added and it's ready when at least 2 pop.
Add popcorn and turn down heat to medium with a loose lid until the corn is popped; remove immediately from heat.
Note: If you prefer a kettle corn sweetness, use regular salt (fine popcorn or granulated) in place of flavicol and, just as you pull it off the heat add
1/4c (65ml or g) granulated sugar for Boom Chicka level of sweetness
1/3c (95ml or g) granulated sugar for Regular kettle corn sweetness
1/2c (125ml or g) granulated sugar for County Fair level of kettle corn
Do this quickly and stir vigorously to distribute the sugar onto the hot popcorn. Some will clump at the bottom, and that's accounted for in the amounts above.
Yeah, it's kind of a pissing contest in the top ten. I saw another list with us one below Canada and I assumed it was probably our (now useless, decades long) tiff with Cuba that put them ahead. Several of the places on my bucket list are on the difficult list for USA, but I also don't really feel safe enough to travel there, nor do I expect them to become (politically) friendly in my traveling lifetime. It's okay, though - I probably don't have enough money to see everywhere I'd like to go anyway.
I looked it up and I think we dropped to 9th this year, 8th last, but then Japan dropped by 4 putting Singapore in the top slot all by itself. I was chatting with a Senegalese poster on reddit a while back and the hoops he would have to jump through to enter the EU as a tourist are crazy, and it takes months to accomplish. I get the reasons for visas, but three's a part of me that is baffled at how humans drew imaginary lines on dirt and then spend a non-trivial fraction of our waking time making sure people don't go on the wrong side of them.
America is only tied for eighth ninth in passport strength, thanks to Singapore taking the top spot from Japan. There are 40 countries which have the same privilege coming into the US (called the Visa Waiver Program here). Of course, the US has had an ETA for quite a while, so this is a tit for tat.
The worst part is having to send a technician all the way to Washington to reset the system. Do they still have anyone posted on the detail who is closer than Moscow or Beijing?
(quick edit - I'm making light because it's political, but I legitimately sucked in a breath when I saw it happen, as both my father and FIL are in their 80s and I'm not ready to lose either of them yet.)
We do need one, but Americans, as well as many other friendly countries, have what is called "Visa on Arrival" which means that you are automatically afforded a Tourist visa just for the asking and you can get it when you arrive at the country. It's easy for Americans, who hold one of the strongest passports in the world, to forget that that visa process for many people can be a long and expensive one, even for something as seemingly mundane as tourism.
This basically adds a "pre-authorization" step once every 3 years to make sure you're not an axe murderer or fall into any other ne'er-do-well category so they don't have to watch you pitch a fit at immigration when you get denied entry.
Edit: I'll add that I pay $100 every five years (Global Entry) so that I can get back into the US on my return flight with as little friction as possible.
Exactly - the title and the article is incorrect. Americans will still be afforded a visa-on-arrival for tourism and other approved short term stays. Additionally, the authorization is valid for three years and can be used for multiple stays within the EEA. I believe the UK is also implementing an ETA (edit, maybe I got the acronym right this time), but I think it is only valid for two years at a time.
In a way it's silly, but it also reduces that chance of a disruption/entry denial at the entry point to the Area.
Which is weird since the US Fed is now trialing a direct transfer service, and you're a lot of dead boomers and genXers away from dethroning V/MC/Amex from their ubiquitous payment networks. There's nothing you can do on the consumer side to make fund transfers cheaper or more attractive (reward systems already pay consumers to use cards) and also get vendors on board (who hate the 2.5-2.8% they already pay; they're sure as shit not going to pay you more than the going rate). Plus, given how poorly the code at Twitter was managed, you'd have to be an idiot to trust X with your money.
If you pay the one time fee or the subscription fee, the system unlocks all the paid features for all of the users on your account. Under your account you can have multiple users, each with their own viewing history (and restrictions, iirc). So if your users log into Plex on their devices using your account username and password - abbadon420 and Hunter1 - and then select their user profile, they will all have access to the features.
The one time fee unlocks forever (the lifetime of Plex, of course) and the subscription unlocks the features for the term of the subscription and then you revert back.
The main place you’ll still find them are as heating lamps (for things like terrariums)
I thought they used incandescent lights for those, and some (like the terrarium heaters) aren't even incandescent, they're just ceramic resistance heaters that fit into an E26 base (screw-in light fixture).
Interesting. I find most pass-through (including the Airpod Pros) to accentuate the higher frequencies, which both makes speech less intelligible and my tinnitus worse. Background noise does mask the phantom sounds somewhat, but I've mostly learned to tune out the whine (since literally none of the popular "tricks" work for me). In noisy environments (airplanes, for ex), I find the ANC of the APpros to do a good job of filtering out everything and letting enough speech through it's actually clearer than w/o ANC.
The economy isn't teetering on the edge like it was in December. Also, rail is a behind-the-scenes transport mode; it gets some press, but very few people get deliveries directly by train. A rail strike in early December would destroy infrastructure deliveries right before the Christmas holiday but - unless you're in rail shipping, the average American wouldn't notice for a couple of weeks.
UPS, otoh, is very public facing operation and 11 million people receive at least one UPS package a day. That's not packages - that's individual business and personal recipients. Enough deliveries to cover every household in the US in under two weeks (that's just a reference volume: there's substantial overlap for daily business deliveries, and the delivery figure is worldwide). Every Tom, Dick, and Harriet is going lose their everloving mind if their important paperwork or Amazon packages aren't delivered. And Biden can then point to the UPS Corporation and say "hey, fellas, that's a pretty angry mob; you should do something about it," and "Republicans cut taxes on corporations so that corporations like UPS could hire more people and run more efficiently, but it looks like they're just keeping all that money for themselves." And those are much better talking points than "I'm sorry I made inflation worse and tanked the economy. Merry Christmas."
Huh. I've spent only 0.035% of my life in Japan, but I was on that train (or at least that line) last year. Glad nobody was seriously hurt.