쌀 벌레 없는 쌀 추천

예전부터 이것에 관해 글을 쓸까 말까 하다가 쓰지만, 나는 쌀 업계와 아무런 관련이 없는 사람이다.

쌀(백미를 사다가 이후로는 현미만)을 여러 군데에서 사 보았다. 이마트/홈플러스에서 소포장으로 파는 것도 사 보고, 인터넷 쇼핑몰에서도 사 보았다. 그런데 홈플러스에서 사면 거의 무조건 쌀 벌레가 나왔 것으로 기억한다. 이마트 것에서도 나왔던 것 같고, 인터넷에서 산 것도 나왔었다.

인터넷에서 주로 10KG짜리 포장을 사는데, 쌀 벌레가 나오면 정말 처치 곤란하다. 10KG을 한꺼번에 다 먹을 수도 없고, 그렇다고 통째로 냉장고에 넣을 수 있는 공간도 없다. 그냥 쌀 벌레가 우글거리는 쌀을 그대로 포대에 두고 매번 밥을 지을 때마다 쌀 벌레를 뜨거운 물로 죽였는데, 사실 보기만 해도 징그럽다. 보기에만 징그러운 게 아니라, 이 벌레들은 쌀 속을 파 먹고 그 안에다가 알을 낳는데, 그 알에 무슨 발암 물질인가가 들어가 있다고 하는 걸 읽은 것 같다.

여러 개 사 보다가 지금은 한 브랜드만 사는데, 이제까지 10KG짜리를 한 15번은 산 것 같은데, 쌀 벌레가 단 한 마리도 나온 적이 없다. 상품 설명 중에는 최신식 세척기가 있어서 벌레 등 이물질이 적다고 적혀 있다. 어쨌든, 쌀 벌레가 없을 뿐 아니라, 돌이나 기타 이물질도 거의 본 적이 없다.

쌀 이름은 조암농협 고시히카리 현미 10KG이다. 네이버 쇼핑에서 "고시히카리 현미 10"을 검색한 후 최저가 순으로 정렬하고, 아래 그림을 찾으면 된다.

파는 쇼핑몰과 최저가는 계속 바뀌는데, 대략, 무료 배송으로 쌀 때는 26000원, 비쌀 때는 30000원 사이이다.

참고로, 현미가 싫으면 똑같은 포장으로 고시히카리 백미 10KG도 있다. 현미를 산다는 게 실수로 백미를 산 적이 있다. 위의 검색어로 검색해서 위의 그림만 보고 샀는데, 하필이면 판매명이 "고시히카리 백미 10KG (사은품 현미 500g 증정)" 비슷한 것이었다. 네이버 쇼핑 검색이 단어가 떨어져 있어도 결과에 보여서, 검색 결과에 나왔던 것 같다. 물론 백미에서도 쌀 벌레는 안 나왔다.

맛은 뭐, 특별히 좋은지는 모르겠다. 밥솥이 안 좋아서 그런가, 무슨 쌀로 해도 그렇게 맛있지는 않다. 다만, 다른 현미들보다 맛이 나쁘지는 않았기 때문에, 문제가 없다고 보면 될 것 같다.

장점인지 단점인지 모르겠지만, 발아력이 매우 강하다. 쌀을 씻으면 쌀알이 싱크대 수채구에 걸리는데, 다른 현미들도 발아를 좀 하긴 하지만, 이 쌀은 무슨 쌀알들이 거의 100% 발아를 한다. 즉 수채구 청소를 안 하면, 마치 그 안이 콩나물 시루처럼 된다. 물론, 감자처럼 그냥 두면 발아를 하는 게 아니고, 물에 닿았을 때에만 발아를 한다는 것이다.

Directly launch a web page in the Reader Mode of FireFox.

I have created another app. Basically it solves the two problems I had.

1. I need an option to open a web page directly to FireFox's Reader Mode

For example, I use Google's News & Weather app. My default web browser was set to Chrome, so it opened the news in Chrome. But I thought it was an in-built article viewer. It had a "Share" icon so that I can send the URL to another app. But unfortunately, FireFox had only "Add to FireFox", which shows an additional cumbersome menu, and even then it did not open the page in Reader Mode. I had to wait until the page is fully loaded (because the Reader Mode button only appears then) and then tap the Reader Mode button. Repeating this was very annoying.

My app, "Reader launcher for FireFox", solves that. If I choose this app instead of "Add to FireFox", it will launch the article in the Reader Mode directly, without waiting for the page to be loaded. Boy, you cannot imagine how convenient it is for me.

2. My default browser is Chrome, but I open only the URL's from specific apps with FireFox's Reader Mode.

Then I found out that News & Weather does not have its own article viewer. When I click an item, it just opens the article with the default browser. My default browser is Chrome, and I do not want to change it to FireFox. My app can also solve this problem.

My app registers itself as a web browser. So, if I click an article in the News & Weather app, it asks me to choose the default browser. My app has a setting for specifying the apps so that only the URL's received from those apps will be opened in the Reader Mode. Otherwise, the URL's will be opened in the default browser, such as Chrome.

With my setting, when I click an article in the News & Weather app, the article is instantly and directly opened in the Reader Mode of FireFox, but if I open web links in other apps, they are opened in Chrome. Now I can conveniently, and pleasantly use the News & Weather app.

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Get Google Now back instead of Google Assistant when you long-press the home button.

Android's Google search app was recently updated. When you long-press the home button, it used to show the Google Now screen (where you can see information such as weather before you search), but now it shows the conversational Google Assistant.

I personally did not like the Google Assistant, and wanted Google Now back. After searching the web, I found that it is not possible. There is a hack, though: changing your language to something weird such as "U.S. Virgin Islands". I tried it, and it did work. But that might affect other apps. So I kept look for a better solution.

I could not find a better solution. So, I came up with an idea. What if I create an app that poses as a search assistant and launches Google Now? So I made the app. The app is called Loader for Now, and it is available on Google Play Store. It is a paid app, though. I am sorry for that, but I need some money to live. I wanted to select a very low price like 0.1 GBP or USD, but unfortunately, the minimum allowed price was 0.5 GBP and 0.99 USD.

When you install Loader for Now, you need to set it as the default search assistant. The app itself provide an explanation and shortcut for that, so it is not difficult to use at all. Just do that, and long-pressing will launch the good old Google Now again. Very simple.

Behind stories

I submitted the app 3 times before it was accepted by Google. At first I named the app "Google Now Loader". It was rejected because the app's name started with "Google", which might make the app appear to be endorsed by Google (which is actually not very likely for my case).

So, I renamed the app to "Loader for Now", and put a bold disclaimer at the start of the app description, something like "This app is not affiliated with or endorsed by Google". I re-submitted the app, but it was rejected again. The reason was that it contained "Google Now" in the description. But how can I explain what my app does without the word "Google Now", when the only thing it does is launching Google Now?

Anyways, I had to remove "Google" or "Google Now" in descriptions, blurred the Google logo promotion image and re-submitted it. Finally it was accepted.

The problem is... searching the Play Store does not show my app. I mean, I searched the Store for "Loader for Now", and weird, unrelated apps showed in the result, not my app. Then I tried searching for "Google Now search Assistant". I understand that my app was not showing at the top of the search result, but there were very many unrelated apps like games, and I kept scrolling down but my app still did not show up. Why should completely unrelated games be listed before my app, when my app is actually related to the search words? I shall never know...

After some try, I concluded that it would probably be impossible for users to find my app by searching the Store for related keywords, so I created this post where I can freely use the word "Google Now", which would make it easy for potential users to discover my app.



Footer:  (They made me do it.)

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