"Yellow grips lead to hideous wasteful monstrosity and escape to various islands, surely each with landing strips to land the jet.  From one to the other,  they never know where you are.   "

"It appears that you can't use the toilet if you are cooking, since the stove and sink must be hidden and covered to permit the refrigerator to slide to the right to allow access to the toilet.  Maybe they figure you'll only boil something, which would require only a few minutes, but then you've still got to put the cooking devices somewhere and conceal and slide everything.  But, if your camped, I guess you just go outdoors, with the toilet only serving - essential - as a shower, which, of course, can be planned. If you cooking, and suddenly you  - or somebody - needs to go to the toilet and it's cold or muddy or snowing or raining outside, the really clean and neat Nordic decor lets you know your experiencing outdoor living.  "

"Should have said 9 months after I sent it Pilot, not Pentel."

"I see that you like retractable rollerball pens.I claim to have originated them.  Way back in the late 1980's, I realized that the then-relatively-new rollerball writers - then water-based, not gel-based - didn't dry out.  I put a Bic-brand roller in the oven and gave it some heat, and it still worked.  Left it uncapped for days.  Blah blah blah.  I filed a patent application for a retracting mechanism:    https://patents.google.com/patent/EP0421937A2/en?oq=ininventor:Kent+ininventor:D+ininventor:MurphyI was living in Ireland at the time - moved there from the US, since royalties are/were tax free, but I never got any royalties - and circulated to the various German pen manufacturers.  One well-known maker gave it a long look, and another told me it would dry out.I sent it to Pentel in California, and the Japanese president had me talk to an American, who told me it looked like something in a novelty shop.I sent it to Pilot in Connecticut, and the American running it sent it to Japan.There was a pen shop across the street from Trinity College in Dublin that I would browse through, and, about nine months later from the date I sent it to Pentel, I found Pilot's Explorer rolling ball writer.  https://www.officeworld.com/Worlds-Biggest-Selection/PIL35360/14Q1/I asked the man in the store "Is this new?" and his reply was "They're exploring the market."I re-contacted the German companies - see, look, don't you want to compete with Pilot? - and nobody did.  I returned to the US, and found the Pilot Explorer in a stationery store in West Virginia.I never did see anybody else make a retractable rolling ball writer - water-based - until I see that everybody makes retractable gel-based rolling ball writers.It seems that in the history of retractable writing instruments, there was only one rolling ball writer - the Pilot Explorer.  Certain reverse-engineering characteristic allow me to claim to have originated it.I got no money out of it.  If there is anybody who doesn't believe Murphy's Law is real, take my word for it, it is.  I have a few now-30-plus-years-old Pilot Explorers.  A few months ago, I checked, and they still write.  "

"Straws remind me of Daylight Savings Time.Back in the day, when they were tinkering with the starting and ending dates for Daylight Savings Times, I knew that, rather than doing anything to solve whatever problem the were pretending to solve, they created a nuisance for everybody, which allowed everybody to realize that they were doing something, hence the inconvenience.  Can't they do something else that doesn't inconvenience us?  Of course they can't.  https://www.britannica.com/topic/Daylight-Saving-TimeNow, the same thing with straws.  The most trivial effort being made that inconveniences and annoys the maximum amount of people, yet accomplishes nothing.  Sure, some people use straws - I did as a kid, sometimes, and I think I used plastic straws, but mostly waxed paper straws (showing my age) - but...hey, everybody...use those soggy old inferior paper straws to make your contribution.  It's a negative contribution?  Oops.  "

"I recently moved to Moundsville, West Virginia, and went walking around the town, looking at the shops, where things were, etc.   There was a mysterious shop with the sign BINS, and I peered inside, and saw just exactly that: rows of bins, with several people looking inside.Got home, and looked it up on the internet, and they had a Facebook page.  https://www.facebook.com/groups/820438558971430/I went back a day or so later, and went in, to find bins full of all sorts of stuff, some in boxes, some out of boxes.  Price on door: $7 on Friday, $6 on Saturday, and it drops down to 25 cents on Thursday, after which new stuff gets put out for Friday.Absolutely never know what you will find, and have gotten some very useful things for near nothing.  Things that you never knew you needed, but were exactly what you did, in fact, need.  Some things you're looking for, too, of course.  Met with a friend and her grandson - who lives in the town - and he spoke about the store, and said he had heard good things about it, but not so much lately.  He said the people were buying Amazon returns - apparently, it just comes on pallets, and you don't know what you get - and simply putting the stuff up for sale.  But, he said, he had heard that, lately, they had begun putting the good sfuff on Ebay.  "I don't blame them," he said.  Nevertheless, I've found very useful stuff, including food items that I would never think of buying, or even be able to get locally.A week or so ago, I heard this:  "Somebody said somebody found a laptop in here."  Every town should nave an Amazon BINS store.  "

"As a left-hander, I've noticed that the handle opening is larger on the side that would be gripped by right-handed people, which I've never understood.Looking at the jugs lined up in the top photo, it would appear that, maybe, this is to create a larger panel for the label, which would be displayed outward in the refrigerated display case. I supposed I can suspend my left-hander's grievance, thanks to this photo.   "

"Just  a comment to RC to say, what a great comment.  "

"Retractable writing instrument from 1990 that eliminated the metal spring with an integal plastic spring.  Nobody wanted to know.  https://patentscope.wipo.int/search/en/detail.jsf?docId=EP12155006&_cid=P12-KLA73Z-44056-6"

"Thanks."

"The GIF shows a plastic spring using polyoxymethylene plastic.  My patent application from 1990 shows a concept for a plastic spring to be used in a retractable writing instrument.  https://patentscope.wipo.int/search/en/detail.jsf?docId=EP12155006&_cid=P12-KLA73Z-44056-6The drawing seen at the link simply shows the concept, the intent being for design experts to perfect it.  The material at the time was polypropylene, which, perhaps, would not have worked properly, as does the decades-later polyoxymethylene.  Finally, the time is right for this concept for a retractable writing instrument with a plastic spring.  A design similar to that shown in the GIF should work perfectly.  Anybody know how to contact the people doing this "shape-haptic" work?  "

"About 35 years ago, there was a salmonella-in-eggs scandal in Britain.  http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/december/3/newsid_2519000/2519451.stmMy impression at the time was that the problem arose because chicken carcasses were allowed to lay around at ambient temperature and then ground up and fed to chickens, and some of the carcasses had salmonella, and the salmonella-infested feed the chickens ate got into the eggs.    A few years later, there was the Mad Cow Disease scandal, which I'm sure arose because sheep carcasses with scrapie were ground up and put into cattle feed, and scrapie passed through the blood-brain barrier - something like that - and became Mad Cow Disease.  https://www.science.org/content/article/clues-scrapie-mad-cow-link"