Cutting and pasting
From Neil Gaiman, on writing:
The lady on the plane next to me yesterday explained, when I told her I was a writer, that as a former English Major she had had dreams of being a major novelist, but she was making a living instead, and she hoped to one day have enough free time to write.
And I remembered Gene Wolfe getting up at 5.00 am every day and writing two pages before going in to work, and I told her that if she wanted to be a writer she ought to write. ("It's like most jobs," I told. "It's amazing how much of it just consists of showing up." But she didn't believe me.)
An anonymous commenter, on my hurricane preparedness post:
This Costco Nutristorage Emergency Food Supply — "Three month food supply for one person", Item # 104893, for $109.99 — is a FRAUD. You will STARVE TO DEATH if you try to survive on the contents of this for 3 months. I purchased this myself. Then I thought it was strange that 25 pounds, 2 ounces (that is about 11.4 kilos) of food could sustain someone for three entire months. That is only about 4.4 ounces or 127 grams of food per day. It can't possibly have very many calories. So I opened the bucket, and counted the number of packets of each item. Then I used 5 servings per packet, and took the nutritional information for each item from the bucket. I put all of this into an Excel spreadsheet and came up with totals from the entire bucket, and what you would get on average per day. The entire contents of the bucket would include 275 servings, which is 91-2/3 days at 3 servings per day. The entire bucket contains 41,715 calories and 1,660 grams of protein. The average daily nutritional value would be 455 calories and 18 grams of protein. To put things in perspective, the Nazis provided concentration camp inmates at Auschwitz with a diet of 1,300 calories per day for light work prisoners and 1,700 calories for hard labor. The average prisoner at Auschwitz died of starvation within three months on this diet. Of the many millions murdered by the Nazis at Auschwitz, probably just as many died from the effects of starvation as perished in the infamous gas chambers. There is no way anyone can survive for long on 455 calories and 18 grams of protein per day. That is less than one-third of the starvation diet that the Nazis provided at Auschwitz. You will almost certainly be DEAD from STARVATION before you finish the alleged "three month" supply.
And here's a little quote from George Bernard Shaw which is always relevant, but particularly so these last few years.
When a stupid man is doing something he is ashamed of, he always declares that it is his duty.
7 Comments:
Wow! Good job on the part of your reader. Combined with bulimia, this could very well be the next Hollywood fad diet!
Oh ... and great Gaiman anecdote. Tis true ... even at just one page a day, look at how much you'd have over a year.
Dammit, I knew my doctor was Joseph Mengele. He put me on a diet of 1200 calories a day! He's trying to kill me!
Someone has too much time on their hands.
If they want to help me out for free or a reduced rate, I have some spreadsheet work I need to get done.
Actually, I'm waiting to leave for a break but I am finding time is heavy on my hands- I either want to indulge in fun (guilt inducing), writing on blogs (wasteful). Watch my trip flash by though.
Wow, that's fascinating to me that concentration camp victims had THAT many calories. Is that really true? I seem to remember reading accounts where they got one slice of bread as a meal, or maybe one cup of soup.
What your intrepid spreadsheeting reader fails to understand is that the Costco Nutristorage Emergency Food Supply was designed for upright, patriotic Costco shoppers who eat the AMERICAN way (you know, at least 5000 calories a day in generously sized portions). These specimens of American health and vigor have at least a six month supply of caloric reserves tucked in and around their persons, which can be maintained through proper use of the NEFS. Also, unlike victims of genocidal Fascist regimes, NEFS users can maintain a primarily sedentary lifestyle, even in emergency situations, that efficiently minimizes calorie loss, with the exception of the sweaty anxiety they feel as their favorite TV shows go unwatched during the powerless weeks after a hurricane; some more mobile NEFS users may burn a few precious calories loading a generator into their SUV's and subsequently puzzling over the connections in their garages while inadvertently huffing the fumes wafting out of their opened gas cans.
Just so we're clear, nicfitkid, it isn't *my* intrepid spreadsheeting. Strangely enough, once of the most common search inqueries I've gotten for the past month in on the Nutristorage thing.
Post a Comment
<< Home