Chopsticks.
Sometimes I want to eat snacks while I work, honestly because I have a weirdly moving dread of stretches of work-time containing nothing in any way gratifying to me. Possibly because I realistically anticipate that I will not remain working long under those conditions.
But sadly many good snacks are oily, crumby, or otherwise ill-suited to being touched repeatedly interleaved with touching one’s keyboard. I think I usually deal with this by eating much snack while not typing at all for a bit, but sort of acting as though I think I’m going to, then washing my hands, then going back to the typing for a while, then repeating—largely defeating the purpose. I also get around this issue by getting bubble tea, a snack which can be substantially consumed with your mouth.
I have often vaguely imagined chopsticks helping, but also imagined that they wouldn’t actually. Today I learned that they work well, at least for potato chips and popcorn.
You might think standard Western cutlery would be the first thing to try, but a) it’s not good for hard, crunchy objects, and b) it’s somehow worse to reach to the side with both hands and do a knife-and-fork action than it is to reach with one hand, so if you need multiple implements to manipulate your snack, chopsticks seem superior.
(For more practical eating advice, see how to cut and chew meat. I also learned to drink from a can in the last year or so, but am unlikely to write it up unless I learn that this is a problem for anyone else ever.)
There seems to be high variance in the scope of the challenges that Katja has been tackling recently.
We’re definitely unlucky that, of the two challenges, this has been solved and AI strategy is unsolved.
Another approach is to lift the bowl to one’s mouth and use one’s tongue to grab the chips. The shape of the bowl affects how easy this is, and when it’s mostly empty one may tilt the bowl and make as if to drink from it. Of course, some may think this looks uncivilized.
Another approach is to use three fingers to eat, and two fingers to type. (Typing with one hand becomes much faster when you can use even one finger from the other hand.) This works less well when reaching into a bag—hard to prevent the clean fingers from touching anything.
I’ve also had success from lifting the bowl to my mouth (with my hands), and then sticking my tongue on the chips; it grabs them up pretty easily. [It also looks weird so is worse to do with company.]
There’s a specialized tool for that, actually! Snactiv. I’ve tried it, it’s pretty easy to use + you don’t have to put it down and pick it up when switching between snacking and typing.
I have multiple friends (in Germany) who eat snacks with chopsticks. I can confirm that it seems easy to learn and efficient. It has the advantage that you eat a bit slower, which makes it more likely that you do not overeat.
What was hard about drinking from a can?
As a person who hasn’t yet mastered the art of drinking from a can (i.e. I spill it every time), I’d benefit from the post.
I’ve been doing this for years! When I worked in an office, I had a set of metal chopsticks I was able to leave on my desk — metal was easier to clean.
As anticipated by Wondermark?
The real superiority of chopsticks becomes clear for foods like Cheetos, or better yet, Flamin’ Hot Cheetos.
Now, sadly, we probably should never eat Cheetos. But that’s just how the cookie crumbles (onto the keyboard).
You can eat chips with a fork! Instead of stabbing them with the fork you attack from the side so the chip is between two prongs of the fork.