Dear Reader (hi Mom!), I admit that I’m a fan of Jerusalem Artichokes. They are the roots of a type of sunflower. Here in Toronto, they’re pretty expensive and rare to find in grocery stores. I don’t eat them often.
When I saw a drink made with them I jumped at the chance to try it out.
This drink smells like an old twig. The flavour is a bit like burdock and dry fall leaves. At the same time, the mouthfeel is smooth like water and the flavour itself is too weak to leave any sort of impression. Strangely, this drink would’ve been better if it had a stronger flavour and a thicker texture. This drink is just bad. The only good thing about it is that it doesn’t leave a lingering taste.
“Fuben-Eki” is a Japanese acronym that stands for “Further benefits of a kind of inconvenience”.
It is a design concept that introduces inconvenience into processes, where the inconvenience would actually be beneficial (forcing you to improve hand-eye coordination, to slow down and notice something, or to improve your memory skills).
Here is a freely accessible video from Japan’s NHK show “Design Talks Plus” about different applications of this unusual concept:
Here are some applications of fuben-eki I can think of:
Slowing down our response to others’ emails. By introducing a delay, we’re giving others an opportunity to solve their own problem. We are also giving ourselves more breathing room. [Time consumption → Encouraging Initiative]
In a factory: cross-training people, and rotating them through different duties in a day. [Increasing number of operations → System comprehension]
Reducing credit-card spending using the trick where you freeze the card in a block of ice, and have to wait for it to thaw in order to make an online purchase. [Time consumption →Enhancing awareness]
Traffic calming techniques like the ones listed here (additionally, there is a technique where you force drivers to be vigilant by intermixing pedestrian & vehicle traffic together without a curb) [Danger →Enhancing awareness]
Adding obstacles to your workspace in order to increase the amount of physical activity you have in a day. Inspired by Craig Mod’s posting about an 86-year-old cafe proprietor in Japan, who has to squat through a hole in the bar in order to deliver customers’ orders. This means that he squats several dozen times a day and maintains muscle mass. [Increasing amount of operations →Preventing loss of skill]
In their latest bid to tear the USA apart, evil American oligarchs have decided to make the existence of transgender people the question du jour. (I presume the actual question they’re asking is “should we permit them to exist, or should we start building mobile gas shower units now?”)
Today I’m going to wade into this morass by eating everyone’s favourite genderfluid snack: Chick Boy.
This is my list of unique Toronto attractions for visitors. I’ve lived in Toronto for 25 years and have explored many parts of it – so this list is a little different from what you’d find on Travelocity.
Tibetan restaurants
Toronto is unique in that you can find almost any cuisine in this city. One of the more unusual (and tastiest!) cuisines you can try is Tibetan.
Below is a set of Tibetan restaurants that are all located near each other. I used to live nearby, and remember that Himalayan Kitchen was good. But that was many years ago so take a look at current reviews. Things to try: momos (either fried or steamed large dumplings), blood sausage (very spicy, you might also know this dish as “black pudding”), tripe (also very spicy).
The Pocari is a rare Polynesian bird who’s sweat was a prized elixir in the 1600s.
In our day we’re lucky that we no longer have to chase the bird, cage the bird, run the bird ragged to make it sweat. We can get Pocari Sweat right at the international grocery store!
This is a collection of great tips I came across on Linkedin, together with the insightful discussion they sparked. I downloaded the full posts and comments using the linkedin post and comment downloader bookmarklet.
