Comments on: Passover

By: Joshua

Joshua — Thu, 01 Apr 2010 01:35:13 +0000

harvling: “Kitniyot” is a Hebrew word referring to certain foods, mostly legumes, which are considered acceptable for eating during Passover by some Jews but unacceptable by other Jews.

Incidentally, I am stunned by the idea that there are people who have tried Joyva Ring Jells and don’t like them.

By: Jesse

Jesse — Wed, 31 Mar 2010 19:44:43 +0000

no kugel???

By: Keera

Keera — Tue, 30 Mar 2010 07:30:30 +0000

Matthew #65, I wouldn’t trust the water coming out of an AC, anyway. And your landlord is right. Also, birds poop. A LOT. I had a bird feeder up this winter for the first time (because Europe froze for once) and oh, my, goodness, do they POOP.

By: Matthew

Matthew — Tue, 30 Mar 2010 01:59:42 +0000

Naomi, thank you SO MUCH for your information & for the link to the robin photo series. It was interesting. Julie Corsi, who took the pictures of the robin’s nest, lives around Chicago, so my robins, in Nashville, may finish before I must turn on the air-conditioner. If they then move to another site, all could be fine. I’m torn about this. My landlord advised me to continue to discourage them, because they will bring bugs right against my house. There will be no water for them. The a.-c. doesn’t drip. As I am about to leave town for a long weekend, the robins may get their way. I certainly won’t remove a nest with eggs in it.
Again, thanks.

By: mitch4

mitch4 — Mon, 29 Mar 2010 23:04:00 +0000

My iHome devices (like a clock-radio-alarm with an iPod dock built in) did not switch to DST automatically; BUT they spared me the effort to decode the obscure time-set routine many of my clocks or gizmos require, by having a particular physical switch on the rear panel reserved for switching up or down just one hour. It’s labeled DST and the two positions are marked with plus and minus signs.

By: Naomi

Naomi — Mon, 29 Mar 2010 22:20:03 +0000

Matthew - oops, I see my attempt to include the URL of the robin’s nest story failed (and made my sentences join confusingly.) I’ll try again:
http://www.i-pets.com/rpet19.html

By: Naomi

Naomi — Mon, 29 Mar 2010 22:18:00 +0000

Matthew - we have a lot of robins’ nests, including on top of two sconce lights (which we never turn on because of the birds) by the front door. I have a flower garden nearby, and the male flies around excitedly and yells at me whenever I work there, but he’s never actually attacked. It’s kind of fun, actually. After the baby hatched and grew, it yelled at me also However, I worry yours might be unhappy when you turn on the air conditioner, and waste a lot of energy moving the nest. I did a little looking online and they will probably have the first brood hatched and possibly gone by then, depending on where you live and exactly when you turn on the air conditioner, but all the sources say they can have two to three broods a year. If you want to look at a very entertaining series of photos someone took of a robin’s nest below their window, see If you are sufficiently charmed by the idea of having a nest so close, maybe you can find a bird expert who will know whether they’ll care about the air conditioner being on (they might like it for all we know - at least it would provide a drip of water in hot weather.)

By: Keera

Keera — Mon, 29 Mar 2010 15:57:42 +0000

mkilby, none of my Norwegian clock radios have ever reset themselves automatically, not even my brand-new JBR iPod player/radio thingy. Which did surprise me.

By: mkilby

mkilby — Mon, 29 Mar 2010 13:58:24 +0000

@ Keera (59) - Normal “plug in” clocks (such as most clock radios) ARE adjusted automatically: they use the cycle count in the 50 or 60 Hz AC power supply to keep synchronized. In many regions power grid managers keep track of the daily fluctuations, and tweak the frequency to keep the average number of cycles correct, so that everyone’s clocks don’t “drift”. This is why a European clock radio (on a transformer) will not keep proper time in the USA: the clock expects 50 Hz, so when you feed it 60 Hz it will gain 12 minutes per hour.

P.S. My Palm Vx is aging, but still works just fine. I upgraded it to Palm OS 4.1, so it has a simple checkbox that activates DST, making it easier to change than almost all the other clocks in the house. (I never bothered with Datebk, the regular calendar has covered my needs just fine). The main reason I’ve kept such an old device (rather than upgrading) is that I can use it for up to two weeks without recharging.

By: Keera

Keera — Mon, 29 Mar 2010 11:44:25 +0000

Matthew, #57, I asked because the Palm does have a calendar program called Datebk (and I miss it and my Palm). My MacBook, my iPod and my TV decoder all reset themselves. Bless ‘em. But for the rest, I do what mkilby #58 does: Sit back after all the other readjustments and marvel at the list of clocks a household can contain. And really, I want some system where anything plugged in automatically gets adjusted. Personally, I want DST all year round. This far north, it’s nice to have a bit of daylight for errands after work in the winter, too.

mkilby, I didn’t know the UK switches at the same moment. Reading up on it, I have now learned that Europe simply switches at 1 AM GMT, which makes it at 2 AM for CET. I’ve also learned that Finland now uses DST. Having lived in the US, I think switching at 2 AM local time makes sense. The US has five time zones to consider (Hawaii doesn’t use DST), not Europe’s three.