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Twinkies: The Breakfast of Champion Programmers Still Hard To Get
An anonymous reader writes "When Hostess, baker of Twinkies, filed for bankruptcy and ceased operations in November, Twinkies were no more. Then, a private equity firm bought the business for $410 million and planned to resume production in 'The Sweetest Comeback in the History of Ever.' Now, an article in the Pittsburg Post-Gazette reports that they're still hard to get, since an unprecedented demand has caused orders to exceed production capacity 'by a significant amount.'"
That's a bit rich coming from someone making an anonymous comment on an internet article, which is about the intellectual equivalent of a vending machine breakfast. I say this as a past-master at both activities.
No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
I've never had a twinkie. I want to try.
besides, most countries have taxes on sugar etc..
what I find pathetic is that they ceased production for a product in such high demand. whoever handled the bankruptcy fucked up.
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
What is this magic healthcare we pay for that makes them healthy and keeps them alive as long as you and I?
My understanding is no amount of money will fix type 2 diabetes and obesity in a non-compliant patient. Odds are these are going to be cheap deaths. If you want to lower healthcare costs you have to get people to do more of this stuff. Us healthy folks living into our 80s and 90s requiring round the clock care is where the real costs are.
What do they care?
They all care. That is the point. You think anyone chooses to be fat, your less attractive, treated badly, can't fit normal clothes, you are generally slow, as well as a whole host of illnesses...yeah you die sooner as well, so I guess others will have to pay for your pension. Overall though its shitty being fat, and you care about it all the time.
You get penalised for being fat.
besides, most countries have taxes on sugar etc..
heh, in the US we tariff the hell out of sugar and subsidize high-fructose corn syrup. To support the War on Triglycerides, apparently.
what I find pathetic is that they ceased production for a product in such high demand. whoever handled the bankruptcy fucked up.
Are you kidding? That strategy has generated billions of dollars worth of free advertising for the Twinkie brand and demand is now at an all-time high; profits from now go to the new owners, losses from then are accounted for in the bankruptcy and get paid for by the creditors. It's brilliant, really, in a sociopathic sort of way.
FWIW, there is a mountain of Twinkie boxes and a 5x8 advertising banner at the entrance to the WalMart in Claremont, NH. I won't need any until October, when the boy wants some of those Minion cupcakes for his birthday party.
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In any case, what exactly is a twinkie? And are they designed for oral ingestion or for insertion via another orifice?
I've seen a lot of developers eat breakfast over the decades and don't recall ever seeing anyone stuffing their face with a Twinkie. Tankards of coffee would be a far more accurate observation.
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Us healthy folks living into our 80s and 90s requiring round the clock care is where the real costs are.
The "Death Panels" will take care of you. [ /sarcasm ]
The death panels already exist and have existed for years and years - however their correct name is Actuary.
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We could do with doctors having some end of live training. I have watched too many elderly relatives treated with expensive and painful procedures that only managed to lengthen their suffering a very short amount of time. Often increasing their suffering for that time. Yeah, lets try chemo on an 85 year old who is more cancer than man! What the hell is wrong with these doctors?
I've never had a twinkie. I want to try.
I live in the UK, and tried one towards the end of last year. (*) In all honesty, I really couldn't see what all the fuss was about.
Even accounting for the fact it may have been marginally stale- since it was an import- it had that almost "uncanny valley" fake quality to it of something that would never have been conventionally "fresh" in the first place. It reminded me of some off-the-shelf (also long-life) waffles I'd tried previously and been similarly unimpressed with.
The snack itself was just bland; mediocre cake and an uninteresting, over-sweet cream filling. Nothing disgusting, just... pointless.
"Long life" baked goods like Twinkies don't seem to be as culturally important over here. I'm only guessing, but possibly the popularity of long-life snacks like the Twinkie may be greater in the US because being more geographically spread out than other countries made keeping goods fresh more of an issue, particuarly when Twinkies (etc.) rose to prominence in the mid-20th-century.
(*) The fact this was around the time of the bankruptcy was pretty coincidental; a new shop importing US snacks had opened, and I was curious to try one. I paid something silly for it- around £1.75 IIRC- but again I doubt that was because of the bankruptcy- the shop markup was already high, and they were charging more for individual ones split from their packs.
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What is this magic healthcare we pay for that makes them healthy and keeps them alive as long as you and I?
It's called "private medical research" and "medical tourism".
My understanding is no amount of money will fix type 2 diabetes and obesity in a non-compliant patient.
Your understanding is out of date. We are currently using Porcine stem cells and islet transplants to treat diabetes, albeit it's still considered experimental treatment in the U.S. so that insurance companies, which we still have to pay for our healthcare, rather than having a single payer system like the rest of the world, don't have to pay for the treatment:
http://www.mmf.umn.edu/diabetes/
On the other hand, if you are willing to travel to Russia, Finland, the Ukraine, the Czech Republic, Panama, or Poland, they'll happily take your money, and provide treatment for Diabetes, Parkinsons, and a half dozen other conditions, and several of the countries will even let you buy antiaging treatments as well.
When Porcine stem cells are used, you have to sign some pretty strict agreements, since they down't want PERV (Porcine Endogenous Retro Virus) crossing species boundaries, unless you agree to sexually isolate yourself on the order of the protection necessary to prevent the spread of AIDS (condoms, etc.).
You know what else is hard to get? Heroin.
"Champion programmers" don't eat Twinkies. Fat programmers eat Twinkies.
Don't fuck up your body, please. You only get one and it's already out of warranty.
You are welcome on my lawn.
I noticed Twinkies back on the shelf a couple weeks ago. I ran up to the stack, hefted a box lovingly and said, "I knew you couldn't resist me for long!" A stockboy standing nearby laughed, but what does a mere lad know of true love?
... shared her with my wife and little boy. "Yes, please! Help yourselves!"
... moved on.
Now I know, however, a shadow has fallen upon this romance. In Twinkies' absence, I tried Tastykake's Dreamies. Her smooth, flavorful cream enrobed in fresh, rich-tasting sponge cake was more than simple comfort when Twinkies left. Dreamies shared sensations with me that were unfulfilled fantasies when Twinkies were my sole companion. Every night after dinner with Dreamies was an exquisite exploration of forbidden flavor. Sometimes, I even had two!
When Twinkies came back, my heart and stomach pounded; lovers reunited! We left the grocery store and I buckled my box safely into the passenger seat and started the engine. At the first traffic light, I reached over and deftly parted her cardboard folds and reached for the treasures within. Cellophane yielded willingly at the next red light and soon familiar flavors and textures burst in my mouth!
Something was wrong.
My tastebuds now expected the fresher, richer flavors of Dreamies. Twinkies had a familiar, hydrogenized aftertaste, but Dreamies didn't. I don't think my companion noticed at the time, but when we got home, I put her on the shelf and have only reached for her twice since then. I've even
There's no way Twinkies doesn't know now. Something has changed between us. I think I hear sobbing in the kitchen when she doesn't know I'm near. I feel bad, but I know she feels worse because she was the one who left. I want to make it work, but Twinkies just can't bring me the sensations for which I yearn. I've
What the hell is wrong with these doctors?
The patients ask for it. I am a doctor. Many people say that they are at peace with dying, but when they are actually near death, NO ONE really means it. In 20 years, I have seen too many people die than I can count. All of them wanted everything done, regardless of the cost and side effects, and questionable benefit. If there was even the slightest question of prolonging their life 10 minutes, as long as it was covered by insurance, then they insisted on the treatment. But I'm sure you don't want to hear that. It's easier to blame the doctor.
As a EU citizen you are probably aware not a single food from the US comes from the US... there is NO food exported by the US to anywhere else that did not come from somewhere else to begin with. Real American foods such as American Cheese, American Beer, Grits and .... well that is about it, are not export. American bakery products are amongst them. And for good reason.
Twinkies are famous for being one of two things to outlast the nuclear holocaust. And you got to pity the cockroaches if that is the only food left. The maker claims their long life is a myth but I tested this by keeping them on a hot PC for over 2 years and the taste at the end had not changed. Can't say if they spoiled, just that the taste has not changed.
So what is the taste. Imagine a cake.... now imagine cake without butter. Ah, like Chiffon cake you might say... NO. In order to have a long shelf life, the hostess company does not put butter in its cakes. This might confuse those of you who think ordinary cake with butter has a long shelf life if properly wrapped but you know, Americans. They have however NOT simply made a Chiffon cake (also does not contain butter) but added something else. Don't know what but it is chemical You could lick an oil refinery and not encounter such a chemical taste. Why you might want to lick a oil refinery? Possibly because you just ate a Twinky.
The cake is truly horrible in every regard, taste (chemical), texture(dry), color(frightingly yellow pale). Inside the Twinky the ugliest caterpillar ever made a cocoon and died just as its entire body had degraded into a white mass. There are various candy interiors you better not think about to closely, this is they their queen. I think it actually serves as a coating for you taste pupils to guard you against the true horror of the cake.
So why do American love it so much?
THEY DON'T!
When I went to the US a few years ago, I went on the hunt for them because I heard so much about them and had to taste them. Most Americans I asked had no idea what I was talking about. I finally found them at Redneck central Walmart. Everything you ever heard about the USA and don't really believe is happening right now at Walmart. I now understand the compulsive need American feels to own a dozen machine guns.
To recap:
If you EVER hear about a regional delicacy that hasn't made it past its region. Take a GODDAMN HINT. Chocolate, Beer (except American), Wine, Cheese, Appels etc etc ARE NOT regional delicacies because they taste damned good and everyone loves them. Rotten fish, maggot cheese, American cheese are ONLY available in select locations because everyone will sooner declare war then import them. This includes ANYTHING from the hostess company.
They went bankrupt for a reason. Americans are fond of them because their mothers (who hated them) gave them a cake from a big box to shut them up and of such things the memories of childhood are made. But nobody in the US actually eats them. You shouldn't either, I did so you don't have to.
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We could do with doctors having some end of live training. I have watched too many elderly relatives treated with expensive and painful procedures that only managed to lengthen their suffering a very short amount of time. Often increasing their suffering for that time. Yeah, lets try chemo on an 85 year old who is more cancer than man! What the hell is wrong with these doctors?
Doctors!? What about 85 Year Old Cancer Man's fearful obsession with trying to eke out even a possible tiny few months more of life? What about 85 Year Old Cancer Man's family who sues the doctor years after Cancer Man dies because the doc "didn't do all he could and spend tens of thousands of dollars to eke out another few months of pitiful life for our father/son/husband!!!!11lleleventy"
Talking directly to Cancer Man I say this: dignity, motherfucker, do you speak it? Try dying with it then you selfish asshole. The ultimate issue is that in the US, there is no dialog on death and dying, there's only more fear. We don't talk about dying, we don't want to deal with dying, we don't want to see people dying, we don't want to deal with what we sometimes must do after death (like plan funerals, etc.) Death and dying as a natural part of living are treated as almost a kind of taboo subject and rarely intrudes into public consciousness except for when complete fucking morons spout off about "death panels" and pile on more and more fear.
As a people, Americans are now defined by and controlled by every kind of fear imaginable and more the kind of fear that is only imagined.
So tell Cancer Man and his family to sit down, have a nice hot cup of shut the fuck up and figure out how to make his dying as best as circumstances allow instead of driving up everyone else's medical costs, suing good doctors into oblivion and/or driving good people out of medical practice in the first place due to these hysterical lawsuit-happy SELFISH ignorant fools.
"A government is a body of people usually -- notably -- ungoverned." -Shepherd Book
They are pound or sponge cake with a highly fat filled marshmallow creme filling. They are incredibly easy to make.
Todd Wilbur has a great video on how to duplicate them at home. He does the same for a lot of snack foods -- Does a great Oreo too.
Personally I'm not terribly excited for Twinkies' return. This most recent mess was the result of a bunch of Romney-style Capitalists trying to bust Hostess' Union for more profit, being helped along with assholes on Fox News blaming the victims of 10+ years of those assholes sucking Hostess dry.
The new Hostess is non-union and has lost most of it's talent -- and no American should ever support Union busting.
I've never had a twinkie. I want to try
You really don't. They are pretty gross and really bad for you.
what I find pathetic is that they ceased production for a product in such high demand. whoever handled the bankruptcy fucked up.
The company didn't go through Chapter 11 bankruptcy where you keep operating and restructure the company. The company did a Chapter 7 where you liquidate the company. A Chapter 7 bankruptcy occurs when you no longer expect the company to have a reasonable expectation of remaining a going concern. When you do that you stop production because the company no longer exists and is being sold for the residual value of its assets. Someone bought the assets and started production again which is exactly what you might expect in a Chapter 7 bankruptcy.
A union is an association of workers, and the right of free association is protected by the First Amendment. Why do you hate freedom?
First of all, Talent? They were making Twinkies. Not growing human brains on mars. I'm pretty pro union, but this union voted for unemployment, rather than a concession on stupid job conditions. They're the idiots that aren't needed in organized labor in this day and age. Many people saw corruption and incompetence take root at unions and decided they were better off without the unions at all. In the end for most, the decision was simply choosing the method of death. Unions need to be smarter and have pay and benefits aligned with the company's financial health.
Well.. maybe. Or Maybe not. But Definitely not sort of.
Personally I'm not terribly excited for Twinkies' return. This most recent mess was the result of a bunch of Romney-style Capitalists trying to bust Hostess' Union for more profit,
I don't care about Twinkies, but the situation was much more complex than your stereotype. Half the union workers were in favor of the breakup. Why? It was Teamsters against the Bakers union.
Hostess was not profitable, I don't care if you're pro-union or anti-union, if you're not profitable there will be no union. The bakers realized this, and blamed the Teamsters for making Hostess inefficient. They thought if they went through bankruptcy, the court might get rid of the Teamsters, and a new buyer would come and re-open Hostess, and they would get their jobs back (that is basically what happened).
The Teamsters opposed the breakup, because they preferred to keep their jobs (naturally). The problem was massive inefficiencies made them uncompetitive. Union rules required that different products be delivered on different trucks, and a different person had to come with the driver to unload the truck while the driver had to just stand there waiting. They maintained an entire network of outlet stores (did you ever visit a Hostess outlet? Neither did anyone else, but they stayed open anyway).
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
This is the part I don't get.
The "Obesity Epidemic" Started in the late 1990's, Before that it wasn't a big problem.
We often blame the "Obesity Epidemic" on things like Soda/Pop, Fast Food, Junk Food snacks...
However these food foods have been around for many generations, I would expect if they were a major cause to the "Obesity Epidemic" then they would have shown up much earlier after they started to gain popularity.
So either something changed in these foods that makes them different then they were a hundred years ago (such a replacing Sugar, with Corn Syrup) Or there is an other cause, probably more complex that average Joe doesn't want to think of.
My Hypothesis is to the "Obesity Epidemic" is the rise in Mass Media creating fear.
Pre-Late 1990's much of new media came from 3 TV stations, and news papers. Which for the most part were rather toned down and didn't try to put people in a major panic about everything. Sure the Russians wanted to blow us up, but that gave us a single enemy to look at. But now we have breaking news on everything, and every little detail is analysed and shown how it will react in a worse case... News of kids missing anywhere in the US is getting headlines, discussion of all the other problems all begins to weigh on us. We have been trained to be afraid of the world.
So we are afraid of the world, we won't let our kids to go outside and play, because we are afraid of the Sex Offender across the street will take them away, or if they accidentally step on the neighbors flower they will get hit by a massive lawsuit. Or if you see other kids you are too scared to discipline them when they are doing something dangerous or wrong, because you are afraid that you will get some sort of child abuse claim against you....
So we keep our kids inside all day. Kids have energy but they don't have means to burn it so they are playing video games all day... However their body is growing so it is telling them they should eat, so they eat, but it leads to excess.
If we are adults and we are afraid of the world we put on a few pounds early on mostly because we grew up and didn't adjust our food intake to match our adult needs. However we don't want to be seen as the Fat Guy at the Gym, or the Fat Guy running down the street, that TV Comedies like making fun of. So we will tend to stay inside or do activities that are safe from ridicule. Then combined with the body image that you are Fat means you will begin to accept your weight as part of you identity and not really try too hard to change it. Sure we will try some fad diets loose 10-20 lbs but it will ware us out and will put them back on, plus some. Being that it is called an "Obesity Epidemic" means we are not completely at fault either, because it is part of a bigger problem, so we will sit and weight for those who are smarter then us to solve it.
This Fear model tends to make sense with the trends of higher Obesity.
Uneducated: Untrained in dealing with information, more prone to throw stuff out of proportion.
Poor: Often Uneducated, however they are worrying about making it to the next day, so they will do what they need to get to the next day, however fearing what will happen tomorrow.
Minority Races: Fear of going out, as they are prone to more suspicion, even if they are just doing the same thing the Majority Race is doing.
Sure eating junk food in excess will not be healthy... However they are fine in moderation, and with balance of healthy living.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
They have been used as a unit of measure for psychokinetic energy.
"Well, let's say this Twinkie represents the normal amount of psychokinetic energy in the New York area. Based on this morning's sample, it would be a Twinkie... thirty-five feet long, weighing approximately six hundred pounds."
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