
Ice Balls - MilnerRoute
http://the-tusk.com/2015/01/09/ice-balls/
======
wpietri
What a wonderful piece. Brave, thoughtful, funny. One of the things I most
enjoy about my gender-nonconforming friends is how they can make some causal,
offhand observation about how people act that will crack my head open. All my
life, I'll have just taken some aspect of a socially constructed gender binary
as The Truth. And they'll point out something that is at this point utterly
mundane to them because they've seen it from multiple perspectives. Often
something that they'd rather not even deal with, but everybody keeps pushing
on them.

Thanks for posting it.

(And also, I am darkly pleased to find out that club is even more awful than I
expected. The "stylized power ritual" paragraph is perfect.)

~~~
Domenic_S
I took a totally different message away from the story. It was a story -- one
you don't often hear -- of someone who discovered their trans tendency was a
result/coping mechanism borne of early trauma.

I don't think the club sounded any more/less douchey than a place like HN (the
owner notwithstanding). It sounds like a place where a certain group of people
complain about the issues that affect them. Like all specialized groups, their
complaints sound ridiculous to non-members. For comparison, consider this
complaint: "We just can't afford a house in Palo Alto, all we can spend is
$800k and anything halfway decent is at least $2MM" \-- that conversation
probably happens 100x daily in the Bay, but it sounds ridiculous and
hopelessly disconnected from reality to anyone not living here. Perspective.

~~~
mercer
I'm not sure if the message you took from the story was intended, but you do
raise an interesting point.

Because of a number of reasons I've always spent a lot of time around people
who struggled with their gender/sexuality in society, and there were more than
a few individuals, mostly gay men, where I strongly suspected that they were
gay, at least in part, by choice.

Now just to be clear: I think it can be dangerous, damaging, offensive and
ultimately pointless to make such a judgment, but as a (private) observation
it fascinated to me.

(On the other hand, I've also met a number straight men of whom I suspected
that they could be comfortable gay or bisexual, but 'chose' the more orthodox,
straight identity.)

------
kghose
I don't know about the rest, but the physics behind the ice ball does not seem
right to me. The ice absorbs heat from the drink and cools it. The ice melts
at a rate governed by how fast it absorbs the heat.

If the ice melts more slowly, it absorbs less heat, so it cools the drink
less. You can get the ice to melt more slowly by reducing its surface area,
but your drink will also be warmer.

~~~
MichaelApproved
Here's a video of the ball in action
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uVwhVz_y8m0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uVwhVz_y8m0)

The ice press sells for $700 to $1,100, depending on the size.
[http://www.williams-sonoma.com/products/cirrus-ice-ball-
pres...](http://www.williams-sonoma.com/products/cirrus-ice-ball-press-kit/)

~~~
aleem
Whats wrong with just using a round mold [http://www.amazon.com/Ice-Ball-
Maker-Premium-Silicone/dp/B00...](http://www.amazon.com/Ice-Ball-Maker-
Premium-Silicone/dp/B00CKH8ITQ) ?

~~~
MaxGabriel
Quoting from bartender Jeffrey Morgenthaler's recent book:

> My experience using these has resulted in more than a few cracked ice balls,
> whose deep fissures essentially increase the surface area of the ice ball,
> negating any benefits in that department.

I had pretty much the same experience with my molds (I was using the Tovolo
brand, rather than the one you linked to, though).

~~~
joncrocks
They work better with filtered and double/triple boiled water.

Or you could go for a pricier option such as
[http://www.wintersmiths.com/](http://www.wintersmiths.com/) (which uses
directional freezing).

------
teen
I think there are bad parts of both genders- would this story be much
different if it was a trans woman working in a female super upscale department
store, and coming to the same conclusion, but that she'd rather stay a man?

~~~
mercer
I think the difference is that it would be less interesting to me.

What I like about this article is that it's (for me) a rare case of an article
that doesn't highlight the advantages of being a man, or the disadvantages of
being a woman.

------
azzurite
Am I the only one that thinks this is kind of surprising? I was taught that
transgenderness wasn't something you could choose, but apparently this woman
_can_ and did choose her gender. She didn't "deep down feel like a man" but
still was identified with gender identification disorder.

~~~
wodenokoto
There are multiple possible answers. The simplest being, that she was
originally mistaken in her interpretation of her depression.

It doesn't strike me like the author chose to be a man or stay a women like
how the rest of us chooses between vanilla and chocolate ice-cream. It was a
profound realization that where she was going in life would not make her
happier, only more sad.

Another explanation is that she identifies 50% male and 50% female and both
are equally right or wrong for her. But she still needs to choose to be either
or.

------
bdamm
That was strangely moving and beautiful. Normally I'd have abandoned such a
piece early as an overly dramatic representation of one person's demons - and
I've got plenty of other people's demons on my mind already. This author was
different. I think it was the pace with which she revealed her situation and
the process that brought her to where she is today - deliberate and very
careful.

------
thenithappened
I believe the establishment that the author references is Wingtip, a
pretentious clothing store + private club in FiDi.

[http://wingtip.com/club](http://wingtip.com/club)

Not that it really matters for the (excellent) piece. Just thought some other
readers might be curious.

~~~
zaroth
No need to add dox'ing to a perfectly wonderful story.

------
teddyh
> _I learned mansplaining was not a thing men do to women, but rather a
> dynamic some men do to all people at all times._

Interesting.

~~~
woah
At that point, is it a sexist microagression anymore?

Further, what if the mansplainer's friends don't mind being "mansplained" to?
At what point do accusations of mansplaining simply become nasty ridicule of
those who take joy in knowledge of the world around them?

~~~
wpietri
Mansplaining isn't about joy in knowledge. Read, as an example, the Solnit
piece which led to the coining of the term:

[http://articles.latimes.com/2008/apr/13/opinion/op-
solnit13](http://articles.latimes.com/2008/apr/13/opinion/op-solnit13)

That wasn't about joy in knowledge. He interrupted her to expound about a book
he _hadn 't even read_, while energetically ignoring explicit statements that
she not only the author of a book on the same topic, but the author of the
very book he was mansplaining about. And then, when he finally realized that
an expert on the topic was in front of him, he still wouldn't shut up.

I know a lot of smart people who take joy in knowledge. Who take joy in
_sharing_ knowledge. But every one of them can also shut up and listen.

Mansplaining is about social dominance, not joy.

------
bronz
Ice is a poor conductor of heat. This means that thermal energy of the liquid
medium will be exchanged between the ice near the surface of the ice
body/bodies. Thus, the rate at which the ice accepts energy from the alcohol
is determined by the surface area of the bodies of ice. A single sphere of ice
produces the lowest possible surface area. On a graph of drink temperature vs
time, crushed ice (highest surface area) would produce a large dip and then
level out. The orb would create a broad valley of lower temperature, though
never as cold as the crushed ice.

------
colechristensen
I'm sure I'm not alone in finding this piece incredibly obnoxious. Complaining
about folks being judgmental and condescending while yourself being judgmental
and condescending isn't profound.

------
facepalm
Entertaining, but I feel sorry for her/him for having such a misguided
impression of the world. Generalizing about men from the experience in a silly
club is just wrong.

Also, if she wants to see condescending women, she should go to a meeting of
mothers comparing the progress of their kids. Although as a trans she'll
probably be spared.

------
srl
Wonderful read!

Entertainingly, the author uses "condescending about ice balls" as a symbol of
all things she hates about the testosterone-driven world. In the comments
here: people arguing about ice-ball physics. Metaphor complete!

~~~
jjoonathan
Wouldn't it be ironic if the people arguing about ice-ball physics were doing
so simply because they enjoyed the mildly entertaining physics problem, while
the people attributing the ice-ball arguments to a need for condescension were
only doing so because they themselves needed a mechanism to condescend towards
the people arguing about ice-ball physics?

~~~
kazagistar
Wouldn't it be even more ironic of both groups of people discussed ice balls
because they mildly enjoyed the physics problem, and the perception of
condensation was one entirely fabricated in the mind of some more sensitive
observers?

------
reallynobody
oh god i'm a trans woman and i want this so much

~~~
facepalm
what exactly?

------
jacquesm
Close call.

------
armed10
I don't get what's so beautiful or brave about this blog post. I personally
felt it was more cynical and attention seeking.

~~~
Lewton
It's brave because it's talking very honestly about something very personal.

I don't know whether I'd say it's beautiful, but it's definitely well written.

It's cynical, but that's also part of why it's funny.

And of course it's attention seeking. All writing is?

