Twinkies: The Breakfast of Champion Programmers Still Hard To Get 223
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.'"
pittsburgh is spelled with an h (Score:2, Informative)
n/t
Breakfast of programmers? (Score:5, Informative)
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.
Re:Pathetic (Score:5, Informative)
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.
Re:Pathetic (Score:4, Informative)
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Your understanding is out of date.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/ [umn.edu]
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.).
Re:Pathetic (Score:5, Informative)
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 [youtube.com] on how to duplicate them at home. He does the same for a lot of snack foods -- Does a great Oreo [youtube.com] 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.
Re:Pathetic (Score:5, Informative)
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).
Re:Pathetic (Score:4, Informative)
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.