I think that what health insurance covers is governed by a mix of science, P.R., and law. For example, no health insurance company said "we'll look into not covering mammograms for those under 50" when the US Preventative Services Task Force suggested they weren't necessary. The HMO concept was another attempt to…

"But because it's still crystal..."

I'd be really interested to see the effects of preventative maintenance, both on the body (checkups) and on cars. My gut instinct is that we tend not to get our money's worth out of them. Would going to the dentist have prevented those cavities, or would it simply have prevented you from getting them all filled at…

Mornin' everyone. Late to the party thanks to some skiing this weekend. Yay snow.

Unadulterated white rice is most common in our house, but one of the tastiest, simplest rices I ever made was using the poaching liquid from an Asian-ish chicken recipe (something like [www.nytimes.com] ), fat and all, to cook some jasmine rice. Don't forget the salt!

I think there's difference between theory and practice here. I suspect most casual riders are afraid of sending themselves over their handlebars by overzealous use of the front brake, and thus they tend to use the rear brake more. Once you learn to modulate the front brake sufficiently, this really shouldn't be a…

My experience has been that the braking hand signal is most useful for alerting other cyclists that yes, I'm actually planning on stopping at that red light.

[en.wikipedia.org]

This is tip #4 in the source link. Great minds...

Me too. Most of the time I'm just looking for a little meaty umami boost in a pan sauce or vegetable soup, so the commercial stuff is just fine given the tremendous amount of time and space it saves.

One potential drawback to putting the flavor in the cube: the flavor will change as the cube melts. So unless you wait till the cube melts completely, the Kahlua flavor will increase as you keep drinking. If you're going to wait till the ice cube is melted to drink the coffee, you could just make stronger coffee and…

It's all-but-impossible to heat moist foods in the microwave and retain crispiness. Microwave ovens work by exciting the water molecules in food, effectively steaming the food from the inside out. While you can crisp up dry foods in the microwave (e.g., taco shells), this only works because you're effectively…

You're mixing up rules based on food safety with recommendations based on food quality. For example, the "rule" that sandwiches with mayo should be thrown out on day 2 is because the bread turns soggy, not because stuff grows (think about it: why would a sandwich have a shorter shelf-life than that of the most…

I apologize for going all writing-editor on you, but the "it turns out" phrase is painfully overused on this site. It seems to pop up daily, and it appears above twice. #constructivecriticism

Oh, one more "quick-cook" method I've read about but never tried: before you go to bed, bring your steel cut oats in water to a boil, then turn off the burner and put the lid on. When you wake up, the oats will be rehydrated and will cook in a fraction of the time. Looks like McCann's recommends this method and…

The water-bath technique that this post describes should avoid any burnt oatmeal disasters. But you could always use a timer to turn the crock pot on/off at particular times.

If you have a rice cooker with a porridge setting, you can use that too. I find about 3:1 water:steel cut oats is my favorite ratio.

Using a timer is a great idea. Most slow cookers can be controlled simply by plugging them into a regular household lamp timer (but check the wattage rating first). You'll have to experiment with the cooking time but if you a) don't want the thing going all night or b) you find that overnight cooking overcooks the…

The First Law is the conservation of energy—it has nothing to do with efficiency other than to say that you can't get more energy out of a closed system that is in the closed system to begin with (i.e., it limits your efficiency to 100%). The second law is the one that governs the efficiency limits. It says that…

And what does that lost energy turn into? Heat!