Apple #608: How Baseballs are Made

There is a ton of stuff going on this week.  Any number of things that your Apple Lady could talk about.

• The Presidential election is coming up, so I could talk to you about how wonderful a thing it is that we in this country get to vote and that our votes actually do count, and how important it is to vote.

• Halloween is this week. In preparation, you have probably visited one of those Halloween stores, or you've put pumpkins out on your porch (and maybe a few potted mums, too) and maybe you've roasted a batch of pumpkin seeds. You or your kids may be planning to dress up as vampires or werewolves or zombies. Or maybe you'll just tell each other stories about ghosts, goblins, and ghouls.

• We've also got a pretty big hurricane on the way.  Plus, recently, there was an earthquake in Canada and a corresponding tsunami in Hawaii.

• Next week, Daylight Saving Time will end and we'll have to move our clocks back one hour. Most of you are probably cranking up your furnace with the onset of colder temperatures.

• In sports, there's always football with its penalties and its Heisman trophy. 

In case you haven't guessed, I have covered all these topics already.  So what's an Apple Lady to do?

Naturally, talk about baseball.

In addition to everything else I've listed, the World Series is also going on.  I want the Tigers to win, and since it's tied in the 9th and the Giants are up 3-0 in the series, it is not looking good for the Tigers.

I don't want to jinx the Tigers, so I'm going to talk about baseballs in general.  You  know, the balls themselves.  How they're made.



The inside of a baseball, deconstructed.
(Photo from Wired)

• From the inside out, baseballs are made of a pill, which is a ball of cork with rubber padding around it, then wool fibers wrapped around that, and two pieces of cow hide that get stitched together.

 
Here's the cross-section of showing all the ingredients inside a baseball.
(Image from Baseball Fever)

• Every component inside the baseball is made to very precise specifications.

• The cork at the very center weighs 1/2 ounce and measures 13/16'" in diameter.  Cork is used at the center because it is "livelier" than a rubber core.

[Scutaro just got a base hit for the Giants and the man on base scored. Giants are up 4-3 in the 10th.]

• Around the cork are two layers of rubber, one black and one red.  They added the rubber to cushion the cork and help it last longer.

• The black rubber layer is actually two hemispheres that are joined together by red rubber washers. That why, in that cross-section up above, there are red notches extending into the black rubber layer.

• The black and the red layers of rubber weigh 7/8 ounces each.

• The cork plus the layers of rubber measure 4 1/8" in circumference.

• Latex adhesive is added to the cork + rubber, which is called the pill.

• Wound around the rubber are four layers of wool yarn.  The first layer uses 121 yards of the thickest type of yarn, which is four-ply, and gray.  When the 4-ply yarn is wrapped around the interior, the circumference of the ball expands to 7 3/4".

• The second winding uses 45 yards of 3-ply wool yarn that is white. (The colors are different just to distinguish the different thicknesses of yarn and the windings.)

[Jackson strikes out. Out #1 in the 10th for the Tigers.]

• The third winding uses 53 yards of 3-ply gray wool. At this point, the ball measures 8 3/4" in circumference.

• The fourth and final winding doesn't use wool but rather white poly-cotton yarn because the fibers are finer and smoother. 150 yards of it.

[Don Kelly, in his first appearance in the World Series, strikes out.  Now Miguel Cabrera is up.  He's the biggest batter for the Tigers.  Won the Triple Crown this year.]



Here's another cross-section showing the inside of a baseball.
(Image from Science Proficiencies)

• The windings are done using computerized, high-tension machines which maintain a constant level of very high tension so that some spots don't get wound tighter or more loosely than others.

• After the 4 windings, the whole thing is dipped into rubber cement to seal the deal.  At this point, the ball weighs 4 5/8 ounces.

[Miguel Cabrera just struck out.  Giants won the World Series.  In 4 straight games.  Sigh. But never fear. Your intrepid Apple Lady will press on.]

• Next comes the outer layer.  It is made of -- get how official this is -- Number One Grade, alum-tanned, full-grained cowhide, primarily from Midwest Holstein cattle.  This particular type of cattle is preferred because their hides are considered to be smoother, cleaner, and with a better grain than cattle from other parts of the US.

• The hide must be white.  It is punch-cut into two figure-8 patterns.  The cowhide gets moistened slightly to make them easier to work with, and more rubber cement is applied to the interior to make them stick to the woolly ball.

• Once the two pieces of cowhide are stuck to the ball, they get stapled and then hand-sewn together using 88 inches of waxed red cotton thread.  Some say there are 108 stitches with the first and last stitches completely hidden, presumably so the stitches don't come undone.

• It takes about 13 to 14 minutes to do this hand-sewing of one baseball.

• When the stitches are done, the staples are taken out.  The ball is rolled to make it smooth, and then it gets inspected, weighed, and measured.  It must weigh between 5 and 5 1/4 ounces and measure 9 to 9 1/4" in circumference.

• If it passes inspection, it gets stamped with the trademark and all official insignia and it's packaged up for sale.

Here you can see the whole process in action.  I love these how-it's-made kinds of videos.

• A baseball must keep its round shape even after being hit 200 times by a 65-pound force.  One way they test this is to compress the ball between two anvils (the coyote would be proud!).

• Despite its durability, the average Major League baseball gets used for only 5 to 7 pitches in a Major League game.

So now, in addition to knowing how baseballs are made, you also know to check the Daily Apple for background information on all the current news stories of the day, and also for occasional play-by-play descriptions of her preferred team losing badly.

Sources
How Products are Made, Baseball
Baseball Fever, Inside a Modern Baseball

Apple #607: Felix Baumgartner

Everybody is talking about that jaw-dropping free-fall from the stratosphere that Felix Baumgartner accomplished successfully today.  I didn't know anything about this until after it happened.  Naturally, while reading the news articles, I wanted to know, who is this guy?


Felix Baumgartner, at the start of his free fall from the stratosphere.
(Photo from Wired)


STATISTICS

First, a few statistics about his jump.  Some of these numbers have yet to be verified, but these are the unofficial numbers currently being reported.

• Baumgartner was the first sky diver to break the speed of sound.

• He reached a top speed of 833.9 mph, or Mach 1.24.

• The ascent took 2 hours and 21 minutes. Total time of descent: 9 minutes, 3 seconds.

• Total distance traveled in descent: 24.2 miles

• He also set a record for the highest free fall, from 128,097 feet.

• The time he spent in free fall (before his chute opened) was 4 minutes 20 seconds, just 16 seconds shy of the record held by Air Force Col (Ret) Joe Kittinger set 1960.

• The jump was performed from a space capsule in the stratosphere over Roswell, NM.

• Since he got up there in a capsule lifted by a helium-filled balloon, his first record set was for the highest manned balloon flight.

• He was wearing a pressurized suit that also protected him from the very cold, near-vacuum of the stratosphere.

• Today, October 14, 2012, is the 65th anniversary of when Chuck Yeager first broke the sound barrier in the Bell X-1 rocket.

Here is video of the jump beginning just before Baumgartner leaves the capsule.  When he pushes himself out into space, I clutch myself in terror.



For more video, The Washington Post has video from CBS News that they've excerpted to show the highlights from before his take-off, through the ascent, the jump itself, the descent, and the landing.

This photo was taken on one of the days when the jump had to be canceled because of a dust devil in the area. You can get a good look at that pressurized suit here, though.
(Photo from Felix Baumgartner's Facebook page)

• He said the thing that bothered him the most wasn't the height or the fall, but the pressurized suit & helmet.  He suffers from claustrophobia. When he put on the suit, he could barely stand more than a few minutes in it.  He said that when the visor closed, he got a feeling of "nightmarish silence and loneliness."

FELIX BAUMGARTNER

Now, about Felix.


This is Felix Baumgartner looking very tough-guy severe.
(Photo from Felix Baumgartner)


Here's the more relaxed Felix on Catalina Island.  I think that statue is of a seal.
(Photo from Felix Baumgartner)

• 43 years old. Born April 20, 1969.

• Born in Salzburg, Austria, now lives in Switzerland.

• Made his first skydive at 16. 

• He has a girlfriend.  Just in case you were wondering.

• He's a former paratrooper for the Austrian military's Special Forces unit. 

• After he left the military, he made his living repairing motorcycles while continuing to skydive.

• He makes his living now as a stunt coordinator, operating freefall cameras, and as a commercial helicopter pilot.

• He also says he is a professional B.A.S.E. jumper.  I didn't know you could get paid for that.  I guess, since Red Bull is his sponsor, he does.  Regardless, he obviously enjoys doing it. 

• Other records he's set: lowest B.A.S.E. jump from Rio's Christ the Redeemer statue, 2-time record setter for highest B.A.S.E. jump from a building, and once landed with a chute inside a cave in Croatia.

• On his website, he makes a lot of references to 502. He's made a logo of it, and he's got a tattoo of the logo.  502 is his B.A.S.E. jumping registration code. 

Here's Felix, sporting his 502 tattoo, and getting a medical check before a jump.
(Photo from Felix Baumgartner)

• B.A.S.E. jumping is a very dangerous sport of using a parachute to jump from fixed objects.

• To get your official B.A.S.E. jumping registration code, you have to jump from objects in each of the four categories:

• B = Building
• A = Antenna
• S = Span (bridges)
• E = Earth (cliffs)

• Here's what the B.A.S.E. organization says about itself: "BASEjumper.com does not recommend anybody to get into BASE. It takes a certain type of person to become a BASE jumper and more likely than not, you are not that person."

This is the image Baumgartner has posted at the top of his blog.
(Image from Felix Baumgartner)

• “Trust me, when you stand up there on top of the world, you become so humble. It’s not about breaking records anymore. It’s not about getting scientific data. It’s all about coming home.” -- Felix Baumgartner

Edit: February 2014, GoPro has released the video of their what their 7 cameras on his body caught as he fell.  There's some preliminary stuff, but the real thing starts 52 seconds in.




Sources
Felix Baumgartner's blog
Felix Baumgartner's website
Red Bull Stratos, Felix Baumgartner
Chuck Squatriglia, 'Fearless Felix' Falls 24 Miles to Earth, Wired, October 14, 2012
John Tierney, Daredevil Jumps, and Lands on His Feet, The New York Times, October 14, 2012
AP via The Washington Post, Skydiver lands smoothly after daring 24-mile leap; officials say he broke sound barrier, October 14, 2012 
ABCNews, Felix Baumgartner Beat Claustrophobia in Record Sky Dive, October 15, 2012
BASEjumper.com, Getting into BASE

Apple #606: School Photos

I don't know if this still happens in schools as much anymore, but I remember fall and back-to-school as  being the time for school pictures.  It seems to me that the practice of schoolchildren getting their portrait taken by some photographer who shows up one day a year, and then the parents purchasing several copies of that picture has become pretty much ensconced in our culture (at least, until digital cameras and Flickr and Facebook made that practice of less value to parents).

So my question is, how did this practice get so established that we pretty much take it as a given that somebody is going to show up at school and take pictures of every single kid in school, and then sell those photos to the parents?



This poor girl looks like she has no idea what has happened to her, why someone has dressed her in that way-too-big cap and gown, and put her in front of that stupid background. Hey, it's a class photo. We all look weird in those things, it's just a question of degree.
(Photo from AMC School Photography Service)

• It turns out, the practice of taking school pictures starts with pretty much one photographer, George K. Warren in the late 1850s.

• George had a photography studio in Lowell, Massachusetts which he opened in 1851. He was producing his photos using the Daguerreotype method. 

This now-famous photo of Edgar Allen Poe is an example of a Daguerreotype. You can't tell from this version of it, but Daguerreotypes have an almost hologram-like quality. This is because of the highly-polished, reflective nature of the silver on which it is made.
(Photo from Wired)

• Daguerrotype photography, by the way, meant you had to take a copper plate which was coated with silver, polish the silver until it was smooth as a mirror, put it in a closed box with some iodine, and then you could use it to take the picture.  After you took the picture, then you have to develop it over a pool of hot mercury, and then fix the image using some chemicals, one which included gold.

• So that was an expensive process, it was time-consuming, and it was dangerous (though they probably didn't know that at the time).

• After running his studio the Daguerrotype way for a few years, Warren decided to switch to a new, different process which used glass negatives.  He wasn't the only one making that switch, but what he did with the process was different.

• With a Daguerrotype, you had one image and one print.  Negatives meant you could make several prints from one image.  

• George asked himself, who would want several copies of the same photo? His answer? Schools! (well, specifically, colleges.) This wasn't too much of a leap, since he lived near Boston and you practically couldn't swing a cat without hitting a college. 

• But he thought that students graduating from college would like to take pictures of their classmates back home with them.  So he created photo albums, one photo per page, of the students graduating that year.  (Yes, this is also the story of the first yearbook.)

• He made arrangements with all sorts of colleges and universities -- Harvard, Brown, Williams, Rutgers, Union College, Phillips Academy -- that they would buy a minimum number of his photo albums.  Then he set up appointments to take portrait photos of students, their professors, the college presidents, even the housekeepers.  He also took photos of the buildings and grounds.

Photo taken by George K. Warren of the grounds at Harvard University in the early 1860s.
(Photo from Luminous Lint)

• (Recognize the business of a photographer from elsewhere making appointments with lots of schools ahead of time?  Securing commitments that people will buy so many photos before the photographer even shows up?)

• After taking the photos, Warren went back to his studio in Lowell, produced the photos from his negatives, trimmed them, mounted them on individual pages, and sent them to a bookbinder to be bound. The bindery also embossed the name of the school on the cover, and in some cases, added the name of the student who would be the purchaser of that album.

• How do we know all this?  The Smithsonian has one of those photo albums of George K. Warren's.  That particular album belonged to George W. McNeel, a Rutgers student whose senior year was 1859-1860.

George W. McNeel, in his 1859-1860 Rutgers yearbook, photo & album made by George K. Warren
(Image from the Smithsonian) 

• In true yearbook fashion, people signed it.  Except they didn't write messages like, "Have a good summer," or "Party hardy."  Their messages were more like letters.  And they were written by classmates and instructors both.

• Something else a little different about this yearbook was that George Warren included a photo of himself. 

Photo of George K. Warren, the photographer who took the pictures in George McNeel's Rutgers yearbook, complete with this inscription: "Photographically I am yours, my dear McNeel. Geo. Kendall Warren." 
(Image from the Smithsonian)

• His idea really caught on.  At one college in one year, he made over $1,000. In today's money, that would be $3,700. From one school. And he visited several, each year.

• Today, following in Warren's footsteps, photographers who work for a company or studio (Lifetouch may be the largest; they photograph some 20 million students each year) make arrangements ahead of time with several schools.  These companies aren't visiting colleges as much as they are going to grade schools and middle schools, but it's the same idea.  

 
Here's one delightful class photo from the archives. Sadly, I don't know her name. Or the name of her hairdresser.
(Photo from Blogging Bistro) 



This yearbook photo is of someone currently famous.  Any guesses? Answer at the end of the entry.
(Photo from the angry dome)

Sooner or later, everybody makes the dorky-class-photo face.
(Photo from a page of nothing but photos of some kid named Nick)

• Today's school photographers sit the students down in front of a fake backdrop, tell them to smile, and take their photos.  One at a time.  That's about the same as the way George Warren did it, too.

• They do now manage to take everybody's picture in a day or two.  That's probably a lot more pictures in a lot less time than George Warren did it.  But the multiplicity of it is similar.

 
Do they still do these class composite photos?  I hope so.  This one is from Mr. Fine's 8th grade home room, Newton Elementary School, Torrance, CA, 1969.
(Photo from Gary Chang's Scrapbook)

• Today, it's not the students buying the photos but rather the parents.  And, from what I've read, some parents are less interested in the class photos now because they've got scads of pictures of their kids, now that just about everybody has a digital camera.

 
Then there's the technological advancement of superimposing two images in the same print, which allows for wondrous photographic achievements such as this. 

(Photo from wastetimepost.com)
 

• But, some parents say, they don't actually have any on-paper photos of their children.  So they like the class pictures because they get an real, tangible print of their child that they can put in their wallets or prop up on the mantelpiece.

• Wanting a photo of someone you care about -- that hasn't changed at all.

This is Jia Wen's school picture. I think this one turned out pretty well.
(Photo from A Mum's Hideout)



The mystery yearbook photo is of Joe Biden.


Sources
Shannon Thomas Perich, Photographic History Collection, Smithsonian National Museum of American History, "Photography Changes How We Choose to Recast Experience" (it's actually about the history of George K. Warren's photo albums)
Library of Congress Memory Project, The Daguerrotype
Skinner, How to Identify a Daguerreotype
Katherine Rosman, It's Picture Day, Say 'Cheesy', The Wall Street Journal, November 10, 2011
Historical Value of the US Dollar

Apple #605: Microwave Steam Bags

I have a request!  Daily Apple reader Rodolfo wants to know about those plastic bags that are specifically used for steaming frozen vegetables.  He wants to know how they work.  He suspects they're different from a typical plastic storage bag, but how, exactly?



Rodolfo was even kind enough to send me a picture of the type of steamer bag he uses.
(Photo from my friend Rodolfo [his name has been changed to protect his innocence.])


I suspected the answer to Rodolfo's question would require a patent search, and I was right.  But, never fear, when it comes down to it, how those bags are put together is pretty easy to explain.  And the best way to explain how they work is to explain it in terms of how they are different from a regular old sealable (or zippable) plastic storage bag.



Regular plastic storage bag on the left, zippable plastic steamer bag on the right.
(Photo from Cross My Heart)

• I should admit right up front, I've never actually used plastic steamer bags.  I steam my vegetables the way my mom taught me, in a pot of water with a steamer basket.  But in order to answer Rodolfo's question, I read a lot of people's descriptions about how they work.  I'm a little nervous generalizing on the basis of read-it-only, but I'll do my best.

• First, the plastic in the steamer bags is made of materials that won't leach toxins into your food when microwaved.  Whew!  Specifically, the Ziploc bags are made from polypropylene (PP #5) and polyethylene (PET #1).  

• The bad plastics we've heard about recently are bisphenols (BSPs).  The steamer bags do not contain those kinds of plastics.  

• By the way, a Good Housekeeping test of various food storage plastics revealed that, of 31 types of plastics (wraps, containers, bags), 27 did not have any of the bad BSPs or phthalates.  4 did, but only in 1 of the 2 tests they ran.

• So, the fact that the steamer bags don't have the bad plastics in them doesn't seem to make them all that different from a typical storage bag.  So how else are they different?

• If you've ever compared a freezer storage bag to, say, a sandwich storage bag, you would have noticed that the plastic in the freezer storage bag is much thicker.  In order to withstand the temperatures in the freezer, and to resist getting torn or broken if the bag gets knocked around, the plastic is made of several layers of plastic.  There might be two or three layers of plastic, depending on the manufacturer, and the layers might be of different types of plastic that are tolerant of various temperatures.  The outside layer, for example, might be able to withstand colder temperatures than the inside layer.

Thicker freezer bag on the left, thinner sandwich bag on the right.
(Freezer bag photo from Made in China.com, sandwich bag photo from Industrial Laboratories)

• The same is true about these steam bags.  The plastic is thicker and it's usually made of layers.  The difference is with the steamer bags is the inside layer has to withstand a melting point, because the stuff inside is going to get really hot when it's heated in the microwave. 

• Fortunately, since cooking times are relatively short, it doesn't have to be able to stand the heat for very long, but it does have to hold up to high temperatures.

• If the bags are designed to go from freezer to microwave, then the bag is probably going to have more layers, or the plastics will be a little different because they will have to be able to hold up under the cold temperatures of the freezer, and not get torn or broken during transport.  

• But the upshot is, the steamer bags have multiple layers of plastic, and the layer inside has to be able to withstand higher temperatures.

• The next big difference is the steam bag has to have a way to release the steam.  If you put those vegetables in the microwave and sealed them up tight with no way for the steam to get out, the package would explode, and you'd have pulverized broccoli all over the inside of your microwave. 

The problem for steamer bag makers: how to let out the steam so the bag doesn't explode, but not let out so much that the vegetables don't actually steam?
(Photo from dipity)

• If you told the consumer to puncture the bag before microwaving, as we all have done with frozen dinners, that still wouldn't be ideal because the hole would allow too much moisture to escape during cooking, and the vegetables wouldn't really get steamed.

• So the plastics people came up with a pretty ingenious invention: the vent.  The Ziploc bags have a vent across the top, other types of bags have vents that appear across one side of the bag, and still others have the vent set up differently.  But they mostly use the same general idea.

• The clever thing is, the vent doesn't open up until the package is being microwaved.  Exactly how the vent works depends on the manufacturer and the patent, but here's a description of how one company does it.  This isn't from the patent for Ziploc's bag, so how theirs works might be a little different than this.  But it's probably close.

• The plastic in this steamer bag has two layers, and outer, protective layer, and an inner, heat-friendly and sealable layer.  The inner layer is doubled up and sealed to itself, so the inner layer now has two layers.  The outer, protective layer is on top of the inner, doubled-up layer.

• The vent is made by making an opening in the seal of the doubled-up layer.  That could be done either by not sealing it in one spot when they double it up, or by cutting a slit in it after it's been sealed.  Either way, there's a slit in the doubled-up inner layer.  The outer, protective layer is still on top of the inner layer.

• When the bag gets put in the microwave and heated up, the inner, doubled-up layer is not bothered by the heat because the plastic was made to withstand high temperatures.  But the pressure that builds up inside the package pushes the plastic from the inside so that it bulges, which, in turn, makes the vents in the inner layer open up.  Because the outer protective layer is not as good at holding up to the heat,  the outer layer opens and, voila, the steam escapes.

Ziploc steam bag after cooking. The thing has bulged and filled with steam, only some of which has escaped. The rest has stayed in the package and steamed the vegetables.
(Photo from Cyber Shape Up)

• That's why it's important to put the bag in the microwave with one side in particular facing up.  That's the side with the vent in it.  You put the vent-side facing down, you might block the vent, and then you'd get pulverized broccoli.

• That vent-in-the-inner-layer method is not how everybody does it.  Some people cut slits through all the layers from the get-go, and they make the slits small and spaced far enough apart that they think they can keep too much moisture from escaping.

• There's still another method of using a breathable patch in the plastic.  The patch is, itself, made of plastic, and it lets the steam out, but it's not porous enough to let water or anything else out.  In that case, you would peel away a protective sticking covering over the patch before microwaving.

• But as far as I can tell, the inner layer with a slit in it might be the more popular method.

• Now, I can't resist saying this: these steamer bags are made of plastic, which is made from petroleum.  You use the bag once and you have to throw it away.  I suppose you could try to use it again, but the plastic might degrade with the increased use and heat, and the vent system might not work properly, and nobody's tested these things for multiple uses to determine if you'd get toxins in your food, so it's just a bad idea to use them several times.  They're meant to be disposed of after one use, so if you use them, that's what you should do.  

That plastic steam bag came from petroleum.
(Image from Highlights)

• I use a steamer basket to steam vegetables.  You might say, Aw, but that takes time!  Dude.  You cut up the broccoli while you boil the water.  You put the broccoli in the steamer basket, put that in the pot of water, put the lid on top.  Two minutes later, it's done.  Same amount of time's passed.  And you haven't used any plastic!  You've saved that petroleum for your car!

Steamer basket. You can buy one like this for $4.95 from Amazon, or you can find them hanging around in any grocery store, or at any store like Target or Wal-Mart, or any store that sells any kitchen stuff.

• If you don't like the environmentally friendly argument in favor of using a steamer basket, how about this one: the food and plastics companies are ripping you off.

• I used to research the agriculture and food manufacturing industry, and I can tell you that food processors are always looking for a way to get you to spend more money on food.  There's no margin of profit on a bunch of asparagus.  But if they can cut up the asparagus for you, freeze it or can it, and put it in a pretty package, they can get you to pay a lot of extra money for that asparagus. 

• You might say, But I'm not buying the Birds Eye pre-packaged stuff, I'm just buying the bags and freezing and steaming my vegetables myself!  To that I say, Ziploc is just trying to get in on the action.  You have to buy the steamer bags every time you want to steam something.  You buy the steamer basket once and you're done.

• You might say, But I don't know how to use a steamer basket! Dude.  It's easy. It's so easy, about 15 people have written how-to pages about it. Here's one such page of instructions.  The only question is, how long do you steam different kinds of vegetables?  After a couple minutes, lift the lid and poke 'em with a fork.  If they give, they're done.  If they still feel crunchy, they're not. Put the lid back and wait a couple minutes more. When you can smell the vegetables, lift the lid and poke 'em again.  They're probably done.

• I'm all in favor of convenience.  I think this vent invention is really pretty dang clever, and I applaud whoever came up with it.  But it seems to me, in this case, the convenience isn't that much of a time savings, and it's certainly not a financial savings.  I think we as a country have bought this steamer bag scam, hook, line, and sinker.

• That's just my opinion.

 
 =
 
The people who make these things look at this steamer bag trend and think, "Cha-ching! What an easy way to make some extra bucks!"
(Green Giant vegetables, Red skin potatoes with free microwave steam bag! photo from Packaging Digest, Birds Eye vegetables and rice, Kashi's entire meal in a steam bag photo from Supermarket News, Ziplog steam bag photo from The Nibble)


Sources
Dr. Weil, Plastic Steaming Bag Danger? February 26, 2009
Florence Williams, Is It Safe to Heat Food in Plastic? Good Housekeeping
Lauren Keith, Two Microwave Steam Bags--Which is Better? KFVS
Joe Terrell, Ziploc Zip 'N Steam: "Does It Work?" KLTV, July 31, 2007
Steaming Splendor: Easy, Convenient, Tasty Steamed Vegetables, The Nibble
Su, Jau-Ming and Wolak, Paul Z., Freezable/microwavable packaging films and venting package, US PAT 7,812,293, October 12, 2010
Mita, Kozo et al., Sealable package for heating in a microwave oven, US PAT 6,596,355, July 22, 2003
Bemis Introduces Hermetic, Steam-in-Bag Package Technology for Meals that Include Proteins and Sauces, Bemis Company, October 10, 2008

Apple #604: Back-up Software

Not long ago, my hard drive developed amnesia.  It couldn't remember where the system file was.  I called a technician guy, he plugged in his fancy special CD-ROM, and it found the C:\ drive, but it didn't find a single file on it.  Uh-oh.


This is a relatively nice screen, which tells you there was a problem but it's going to be OK.  What I saw was a message that said windows\system32\config\system is corrupted or missing. Then nothing happened after that. It stayed on that initial black screen of unhappiness.
(screen shot from Ask Apache)


Fortunately, he was able to recover everything that was in my Documents folder.  But 6 years' worth of music, e-mails including people's addresses and phone numbers, bookmarks, and other sundry items that I relied on my computer to remember for me: gone.

Let this be a lesson unto you and to me: your hard drive will someday fail.  If you keep it long enough, it will crash.   Or it will get stolen, or broken, or maybe you'll drop your laptop into a sink full of soapy water, or it will fall out of the back of a taxi, or it will get shot full of bullet holes during some terrible case of mistaken identity--something will happen that will result in your hard drive's departure from the working world.

What you do not want to lose is your files.  Your stuff.  If you've got a back-up system, you can simply go to that and get your stuff and the fact that your special machine that helped you create your stuff is now kaput will be a relatively small blip on the annoyance scale.  But how to back up your files? What should you save?  How should you save it?

The answers to these questions depends on how much time and money you want to put in to the back-up process.  Maybe you decide you only want to keep about 6 or 7 really important documents and the rest of it can go hang.  Or maybe you decide you want to preserve everythign about your operating system so that if your hard drive crashes, you can pretty much push a button and within a couple of hours, a new hard drive will be configured to operate just like your old favorite hard drive--except it won't crash again in 24 hours.

There are a ton of services and software programs and gizmos and databases out there that will help you back up your files..  I'm going to tell you about just a few that rose to the top of my list for one reason or another.

For the PC

Backblaze
http://www.backblaze.com/remote-backup-everything.html
$4.95 / month



Backblaze screenshot
 

• Backs up your documents and photos and other files you choose

• Does not back up the operating system

• Backs up to the cloud

• Advantage: only you have the password to access your files, which makes it very hard for a hacker to get your stuff. Will also back up an external drive. Will also work with Macs.

• Disadvantage: if you lose the password, you're out of luck.

FBackup
http://www.fbackup.com/
Free


 FBackup screen shot

• Backs up your documents and photos and other files you choose

• Does not back up the operating system

• Backs up to a networked drive or to an external drive, though not to a USB stick

• Advantage: it's free. It will also back up files that are in use or locked

• Disadvantages: may be too basic for the advanced user. The program does support plugins, though, so you can customize it to your needs. Files over 2GB get zipped.

Dropbox
http://www.dropbox.com/
Free


Dropbox screen shot from Peter's Useful Crap
 

• Backs up your documents and photos and other files you choose

• Does not back up the operating system

• Backs up to the cloud

• Advantage: you can choose to allow others to access select files, or you can keep it all private. You can also drop files here from multiple computers in multiple locations.

• Disadvantage: This is actually a file-sharing program, so security is not its strong suit. Dropbox did get hacked recently. They also have limited storage space, unless of course you're willing to pimp out your friends. If you do that enough times, they'll give you more storage space.

True Image by Acronis
http://www.acronis.com/homecomputing/products/trueimage/
$50 one time


Acronis screen shot from PCWorld

• Backs up all files including your operating system so you'll have a restore point

• Backs up to the cloud, or to an external drive, or to a networked drive, or to any or all as you choose

• Advantage: also backs up applications

• Disadvantage: if you're running other backup programs, this might interfere with those. But this seems so complete, would you really need other backup software?

• Maybe an advantage, maybe a disadvantage: the backup file created is one big huge image file.  You want an image file to restore a hard drive, so that's good.  But that also makes it a little difficult to tell exactly what it's saving in there.

• Recommended  heartily by the PC tech guy who restored my files

MagiCure Professional
http://www.magicuresoft.com/
$69 one time


MagiCure screenshot

• Backs up all files including your operating system so you'll have a restore point

• Advantage: backs up to your hard drive. In the event of hard drive problems, press Home during startup to access the console. This gives you kind of a built-in safety net for your hard drive, and you wouldn't need to go to another system to rescue it. People who've used it say it's really fast. 

• Disadvantage: backs up to your hard drive. If something other than a crash happens, like for example your laptop gets stolen, or it gets shot full of bullet holes, the fact that you have a back-up on the now-absent or bullet-shot hard drive will do you no good.

For the Mac

Time Machine
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1427
Free


Time Machine screenshot from Macs Are Great!

• Backs up all files including your operating system so you'll have a restore point

• Recommended by my IT friend, who had to use it to restore a Mac at work.  With this, he got the defunct Mac back to its previous working state in only 3 hours. 

• Leave it to Mac to come up with a succinct and easy-to-use solution for a problem that affects everybody.

These are just a few of the options out there.  Is there a back-up program that you think is terrific that's not on my list?  Let us know in the Comments.


Sources
CNET reviews of  FBackup, MagiCure Professional, True Image by Acronis, and lots more

Apple #603: Concussions

A couple weeks ago, I fell off my bike.  I was standing up & pedaling hard to get up some speed, changing gears, a wall was approaching faster than I realized, I tried to swerve, and I lost my balance and bang, over I went.  The fall itself seemed to happen in slow motion, and I could see that I was going to hit my chin on the pavement.  I tried to keep that from happening by bracing myself with my hands (which had already slammed hard onto the pavement), but the force of my fall was greater than my strength and my chin smacked with a bang on the cement.

I was afraid my teeth were going to get broken, but fortunately that did not happen.  The impact jarred my jaw pretty hard so that it hurt to work my jaw for some time afterward.  My chin started swelling up and later developed quite a dark bruise.

Chin bruise, courtesy of a fall off my bike. It got darker over the next day or two.  What's up with that weird downturn on one side of my mouth? I look like I've had a stroke or something. Fortunately, that is not the case.
(Photo by the Apple Lady)


Throughout the course of that day, I developed a headache that got stronger and stronger.  I kept taking ibuprofen, but it didn't seem to make a dent in the pain.  Usually one pill does the job, but I took four over the course of a few hours and I didn't notice any difference.  That's when I started to wonder if I'd gotten a concussion.

Naturally, as the Apple Lady, I had to find out about concussions.

• A concussion can happen after getting hit hard in the head. But a strong blow to the body can result in a concussion, too.

• Your brain is like Jell-O. It's soft, a little jiggly, and it doesn't stand up very well to direct, physical pressure.

  
Jell-O. Your brain is about this defenseless inside the skull.
(Photo from Allee Willis)

• The brain is protected from the outer world by the skull, but it needs still more protection than that. Within the skull, the brain is cushioned by the fluid that surrounds it, which keeps the brain from banging against the hard bone that is your skull.  

• If you get hit hard in the head, though, the blow can cause the brain to hit bone, and the Jell-O brain can be affected as a result.  That's a concussion.

• You don't have to be hit in the head to get a concussion.  If you get hit in the body hard enough that your head whips forward hard and suddenly, your brain can be flung against the inside of your skull and get injured that way.  It's the same kind of injury as occurs in shaken baby syndrome, though usually less severe.  In fact, the word concussion comes from the Latin concutere, which means "to shake violently."

What Happens When a Concussion Occurs

• As a result of the impact, your brain is shoved against the inside of the skull (this is called the coup). Then when your head snaps back, the brain hits the opposite side of the skull (contrecoup). 

The coup -- first impact of the brain against the skull -- and contrecoup -- the second impact against the skull on the opposite side of the brain.
(Image from KIN450 Neurophysiology)

• So you get two bruises on opposite sides of your brain.  The size and severity of the bruises depend on the force of the impact.

• If the impact is a complex one with lots of jostling and motion in many directions, like, say, while getting tackled by lots of people during a football game, the impact of the brain against the skull may also be more complicated, with rotational movements and shearing forces. It's usually in the more complex type of impacts that loss of consciousness occurs, but a single, direct impact can cause loss of consciousness too.

• You might think bruises don't seem too bad, but your brain reacts to bruising with reversible but immediate temporary paralysis of the nervous system.  Everything shuts off for a second. This is a protective mode, but for that brief shut-off time, there is no one manning your ship.  The brain controls your breathing, your heart rate, all kinds of stuff you need to survive.  For those few milliseconds or moments, all that is shut off.  You do not want this to happen for very long, or very often.

• Along with the bruises comes swelling, which first of all means pain, but it also means restricted blood flow, which means a reduction in oxygen, which means a reduction in brain function.

• You can also get torn axons, which are nerve fibers that carry messages in the brain. If those are torn, the messages won't get through. Unlike lots of other types of tissue in the body, axons do not heal themselves back together. Once they're torn, that's how they'll stay.

• If this isn't enough to convince you that concussions are serious, here's more.  As we learned in a previous entry, bruises are bleeding that's contained under the skin. If the impact on the brain is severe enough, those bruises can rupture and then you've got bleeding on the brain. You really do not want this because a) the blood carries oxygen which the brain desperately needs to do its thing and if the blood is leaking out, it's not getting that oxygen and b) bleeding can put pressure on the brain within the skull and with enough pressure, the whole thing will stop working and you can die.

• Now that I've scared the pants off you, I will say that bleeding in the brain is not at all common with a concussion.  Most of the time you get the two bruises.  But those bruises mean the brain has been injured, and that's not something to take lightly. Capice?

How Do You Know if You've Had a Concussion

• It's not always obvious if a concussion has occurred. A concussion might cause you to pass out or blank out, or it might not.  Symptoms can be mild or severe. They can last for hours, or days, or weeks, or months, depending on the severity of the injury, or how many concussions you've already suffered.  

• It's also possible that symptoms won't appear right away but develop after some time has passed.

• There are four types of symptoms of a concussion.  Chances are, if you have a concussion, you won't experience all of these symptoms, or maybe even half of them.  But if more start popping up, or if any of them get worse over time, then absolutely go see a doctor. 

  
A headache was the only symptom I had.  I put a bag of frozen peas on my head for a while, and that helped.
(Photo from LAdodgertalk)

• 1. Physical

• Headache
• Fuzzy or blurred vision
• Nausea or vomiting
• Dizziness
• Sensitivity to noise or light
• Ringing in the ears
• Balance problems
• Feeling tired, having no energy

• 2. Thinking or Remembering

• Difficulty thinking clearly
• Feeling slowed down
• Difficulty concentrating
• Difficulty retaining new information

• 3. Emotional / Mood
• Irritability
• More emotional
• Unexplained sadness
• Nervousness or anxiety

• 4. Sleep
• Sleeping more than usual (unintentionally so)
• Sleeping less than usual (unintentionally so)
• Difficulty falling asleep

• If you think you've had a concussion, the primary and most important thing to do is go see a doctor.  The doctor will conduct a lot of simple tests to determine whether you've had one, and then will determine what kind of rest or therapy you need.

• The second most important thing is don't immediately go play a demanding, contact sport where you could get injured further.  Your brain is a delicate instrument that you need to survive. You've already subjected it to some damage. Give it some time to recover before you go slamming it around again.

 

  
In football, most concussions occur due to impacts from the side and to the lower part of the face, such as in this hit between two high school players in Pennsylvania.
(Photo by Christine Baker, The Patriot-News)

• If you do go back to playing your sport before your concussion has healed and you re-injure your brain, you'll have what's called Second-Impact Syndrome. Basically it means all the symptoms of a concussion can be worse, but you're also more likely to suffer a permanent disability, and even death.

• When you go see the doctor (you see how I'm assuming that this is a given?), the doctor will tell you how long you have to wait before you can play your sport again.

• The doctor will also tell you if you need to stay in the hospital for observation, or if you need to have someone monitor your sleeping and wake you up if you've been asleep for too long and also help watch for any changes in your behavior or mood, or if monitoring your own symptoms is sufficient.

  
Some of the tests a doctor will conduct will test your reaction time, such as this simple test designed by a teen-age named Ian Richardson.
(Photo from the University of Michigan, sourced from NPR)


How to Treat a Concussion

• You can't exactly put a Band-Aid on your brain, so the best ways to help your brain heal all require patience.

• The best thing to do is to rest.  This might mean not playing the sport in which you were injured. It might mean giving yourself a break from doing really demanding mental tasks. It might mean getting more sleep than usual.  It might mean giving yourself a break from using the computer (!) or playing video games.

• You can take Tylenol to help with the headaches. Aspirin and ibuprofen aren't recommended because if your brain is on the cusp of bleeding, either of those could push it over the edge.

• Don't take any other pills unless the doctor prescribes them. Again, your brain is a sensitive creature.  Pumping it full of stuff when it's injured is not doing it any favors.

• The same goes for alcohol or illegal drugs.  Don't go pouring those things onto the problem.  You'll only make it worse.

All right, now that I've read and learned all this, do I think I sustained a concussion?  At first, when I saw all the symptoms, I didn't think so.  The only symptom I experienced was that headache.  I didn't have any of those other things.  But then I remembered what that headache felt like.  It felt different than a usual tension-type headache.  It felt -- this is going to sound strange -- hot, like an electric throbbing, as well as painful.  Even more tellingly, it started at the top of my head and radiated down.  That spot where it started was almost exactly opposite of where I hit my chin on the cement.

So I think I did have a concussion.  The headache was gone the next day, thankfully, and I haven't had any other symptoms since then.  If the headache had persisted another day, I would have gone to the doctor.  I maybe should have even gone the day I fell, but it didn't even occur to me that I might have had a concussion until several hours into the day.

Although a helmet would have been completely useless in this situation, I am now wearing my helmet when I ride my bike.  (Stupid and dorky-looking though that thing is.)  I like my axons intact.



This is how happy your brain will be if you wear your helmet.
(Photo from Kids Bike Helmets)


Related entries: Bruises; Aspirin

A note to my readers: While I dearly cherish any comments posted to my blog, if you ask me whether you've suffered a concussion, I cannot help you. I'm not a doctor and I can't diagnose these things.  I can only provide you some information to start with.  If you think you may have suffered a concussion, go see the person who is best equipped to help you: a doctor.


Sources
CDC, Tramatic Brain Injury, What are the Signs and Symptoms of Concussion?
WebMD, Traumatic Brain Injury, Concussion - Overview
Mayo Clinic, Concussion
brainline.org, What Happens When a Brain Bleeds? and Facts About Concussion and Brain Injury
Patrick J. Fernicola, M.D., Concussion: When the skull just isn't protection enough
Richard Smayda, D.O., "What happens to the brain during a concussion?" Scientific American, February 3, 2012
Nerve Regeneration, BI 108, Brown University

Apple #602: Toasting Etiquette

I've had a request!  Daily Apple reader Jarred wants to know:

Apple Lady, what's the deal with toasting etiquette? I have always heard that you only clink glasses when it's wine, but nothing else.  Do you think this would be a good topic for a Daily Apple?

Of course it's a good topic for the Daily Apple!

My first response was that what's in the glass should be alcoholic, not necessarily wine.  But I looked into it to see if that's correct.


They're toasting with wine here, but you don't necessarily have to have wine in your glass to drink a toast.
(Photo from Taylor Eason.com)


What's in the Glass

• Traditionally it was considered de rigeur that everyone's glass contain alcohol, but most people now agree that that's not necessary.  The only beverage which you are not supposed to drink during a toast is water.

• Why not water?  According to superstition, it's bad luck.  I couldn't find much about why, except that among sailors, drinking a toast with water is considered hoping that the toast-ee will die by drowning.

• What is important is making sure that everyone's glass is filled before offering a toast. 

 
This is Virna Lisi and she's toasting you.  I think that's champagne.
(Photo from Starlet Showcase)

Other Toasting Etiquette

• The host should be the first to toast.

• Exception: If you're into the dessert and the host still hasn't offered a toast and doesn't seem likely to do so, it is acceptable for a guest to offer the first toast.

• Exception: At less formal occasions such as at a small dinner party, if a guest wants to toast the host in thanks, that's acceptable.

• Exception: At weddings, it is traditional for the best man to offer the first toast.

• If it's a large group and you want to get everyone's attention, stand up.  Don't click silverware against the glass because 1) that's annoying and 2) you might break the glass and no one wants shattered glass all over the table.  Simply standing will get people's attention.  Invite them to stand with you and soon everyone will be standing and ready to listen.

• The only person who should not stand is the person who is being toasted.  If you are the one being toasted, for example, you should remain seated, accept the toast graciously but do not drink from your glass, and after everyone has drunk, thank the person who made the toast.  To participate in the toast when you are being toasted would be like applauding yourself. 

Proper toasting etiquette is being observed here for the most part. The toast-er is standing, holding his glass to the toast-ee, who is apparently the bride, who is sitting. The other guests are also sitting, but since it's a small group, that's OK. The only etiquette violation here is that the bride is apparently planning to drink to herself, and that would not be OK.
(Photo from eHow)
 

• It's not necessary that everyone clink glasses, especially if it's a large group.  Raising your glass and calling out something like, "Cheers!" or "To Jarred!" or some other group response following the toast, and then drinking, is perfectly appropriate.

• If you are the one making the toast:

• Keep it short.  Everyone is holding their glasses aloft, patiently waiting to be allowed to drink. They don't want to stand there holding their glasses while you go on and on about what happened in the second grade. If it's a formal occasion and you want to give a moving, personal, delightful performance, preparing something ahead of time may be appropriate. But still, brevity is the soul of wit and much appreciated by thirsty party-goers.  Write down what you want to say and cross out about half of that.

• Keep it sweet. Even if you want to begin a toast by remembering someone who is no longer alive but dearly missed, that's fine, but end on a positive note. Any group gathering is a celebration among those present, so let everyone enjoy the current, happy occasion.

• Make eye contact with the person being toasted.  You're offering that person a gift with your toast, not grandstanding so that everyone can admire you. Looking at the toast-ee will invite the rest of the group to do the same, thus putting the focus on the correct person.

• If you are in another country, other or additional rules about toasting may apply. In France, for example, you should never allow your arm to cross another person's while clinking your glass. In Japan, the glass is continually refilled so that it never goes empty. In Korea, the glass is not refilled until it is empty. It's even good form to shake out the last few drops so that the host knows to refill your glass. The best policy is to keep your eyes and ears open and do as the [insert name of country here]s do.

Of course, even the most formal occasions can veer toward the informal as the evening goes on. Regulations about proper toasts get a little looser too. Though I think the no-water rule would still apply.
(Photo from Wikimedia)


Some Short & Sweet Toasts

• Cheers!

• Salud!  (Spanish)

• Prost! (German)

• Skål! (Swedish)

• L'chaim! pronounced leh-CHAY-eem (Hebrew)

• Sláinte pronounced SHLAWN-cha or SHLAWN-ta (Irish)

• My heart is as full as my glass when I drink to you, my friend!

• May your home always be too small to hold all your friends.

• Here's to your health! You make age curious, time furious, and all of us envious.

• To your very good health. May you live to be as old as your jokes.

• May your joys be as deep as the ocean, and your misfortunes as light as its foam.

• A full belly, a heavy purse, and a light heart.

• May the road rise to meet you.
  May the wind be always at your back.
  May the sun shine warm upon your face;
  the rains fall soft upon your fields and until we meet again,
  may God hold you in the palm of His hand.

• May those who love us, love us
  And those who don't, may God turn their hearts.
  And if He doesn't turn their hearts,
  May He turn their ankles
  So we'll know them by their limping.

 For more toasts for all occasions, check out the Etiquette Scholar.



Some of those toasts are for decidedly less formal occasions.
(Photo from 100 Beers)


History, or at least Legends

These little tidbits have been repeated several places as historical fact. I can't verify that they are historically accurate, but if only through sheer repetition, they have come to be regarded as fact.

• Supposedly, the practice of raising and clinking glasses prior to drinking originated in Greece. Apparently, sneaking poison into other people's drinks was a rather common practice.  Everyone taking their first drink together was considered a gesture of good faith--or else it was a way to find out fast if anyone at the table had been poisoned.

• Clinking glasses is also thought to have originated with that fear-of-poisoning thing. The idea was that clinking glasses would make the topmost contents of your glass, including any poison lingering at the top, slosh out and into your neighbor-and-possibly-poisoner's-glass. How's that for convivial sharing?

Clinking glasses: sharing the poison as well as the pleasure
(Photo from Skeptic Money)

• The term "toasting" originated from the Roman practice of putting a piece of toasted bread into a goblet of wine before drinking, which helped to mellow the flavor of the wine.

• The practice of adding toast to a goblet of wine continued into medieval English times, except their practice was to drink the wine until you got to the piece of bread at the bottom.

• This one I can verify: even though we all know that Spock liked to say "Live long and prosper," it was Washington Irving who first penned that one. 

Spock and Washington Irving -- both said, "Live long and prosper."
(Photo from the Star Trek Database and from Biography.com)


Sources
Etiquette International, Toasting - A Memorable Art
German Toasting Glasses, Proper Toasting Etiquette 
Etiquette Scholar, Toasting
Kevin Toyama, Honolulu Star Bulletin, Well-delivered toast makes memorable event
Lynne Rossetto Kasper, The Splendid Table, Toasting Etiquette
InSide the TravelLab, Wine, Health, and Seven Years of Bad Sex: Toasting Traditions in France