Apropos of Nothing ...

Sent to me by my late mother (along with lots of family photos, etc.) when she moved into the nursing home. Because we lived in a small town, only one local restaurant offered this essential dish, so she sometimes just made it at home using this recipe, which I assume was clipped from the Lebanon Daily Record (where I got my start as a "straight news" journalist at 12, writing meeting reports for the "club notices" section on behalf of the Laclede County Beekeepers' Association).

It's good stuff. If you live in the benighted 90% or more of the United States where the dish is not available, the recipe should serve you well.

An easier alternative, when and if this sauce mix happens to be available at Amazon (not an affiliate link), is to just grab some cashews, some green onions, and your preferred store-bought chicken nuggets (I prefer these from Sam's Club -- again, not an affiliate link), heat up the nuggets, throw on the cashews and chopped onions, and toss the whole mess in some of the sauce. Back in the day, my mom tried a recipe based on McDonald's Chicken McNuggets, but pretty much everyone deemed that route unsatisfactory.

Another thing I've done, when I've had that sauce available, is go to a local Chinese restaurant and order one of their breaded/battered chicken dishes, "hold the sauce and veggies," then run it home and do the cashews/onions/sauce thing. Personally I thought the Sam's Club chicken came out bettter, though.

So yes, it is possible to have cashew chicken pretty much anywhere in America.

But it should be convenient to do so.

Without Further Comment ...

Countdown

Wordle 741 Hint

 Hint: You might weave a hat out of, or drink a milkshake through, this. 

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First Letter: S

Wordle 740 Hint

Hint: Someone who eats, or a place where he or she might do so. 

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First Letter: D

Wordle 739 Hint

Hint: Jack Chick's company, Chick Publications, claims it's sold more than 750 million of these. 

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First Letter: T

So Much for the Wacky "Independent State Legislature" Play ...

"When state legislatures prescribe the rules concerning federal elections, they remain subject to the ordinary exercise of state judicial review." -- Chief Justice John Roberts, writing for the majority in Moore v. Harper

Just as I said 11 months ago.

Wordle 738 Hint

Hint: If you're out, you might also be this. 

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First Letter: A

I Just Spent Dash for the First Time ...

... and it went fine.

I took a flier on trading BTC for some of that particular cryptocurrency last week, when it happened to be down just a little bit and BTC happened to be up just a little bit, while listening to it being heavily promoted on Free Talk Live.

One of the attractions for me was the DashDirect mobile app, which lets you buy gift cards in, allegedly, 155,000 variants, with discounts of up to 12%.

Unfortunately, Amazon doesn't seem to be among the 155,000, and Amazon best met my needs by not requiring me to purchase from multiple vendors (I was buying tools -- socket set, wrench set, and reel mower blade sharpener -- and food -- Soylent meal replacement shakes, the need for which is explained in my previous post -- and the price was righter at Amazon on the tools than at the other vendors I checked out anyway).

So I went to my old stand-by, BitRefill.com (that is an affiliate link -- once you've spent $50, both you and I get $5 worth of BTC), planning to spend BTC, and whaddayaknow, they accept Dash.

I didn't set a stopwatch or anything, but it was less than a minute from my send to BitRefill's receipt of the crypto and fulfillment of my order. Much faster than BTC at even the best of times, and with a fee of less than once cent USD.

I haven't looked into the technical details of Dash yet, and don't know if the quick transaction times and low fees are capable of scaling up to high demand, but so far I'm impressed. And I effectively got a discount in that the Dash was worth more USD when I spent it than when I got it.

The Kind of Gain One Doesn't Like ...

I stopped smoking at the end of April, at which time I weighed right at 220 pounds.

I was pleased to see at the end of May that, rather than gaining weight, I'd lost two pounds.

But then yesterday I weighed in at 228 -- erasing that initial loss and putting on eight more pounds. I was kind of surprised, because I seem to have been visibly losing belly and "love handle" fat.

I've been putting in a minimum of 10,000 walking steps a day, and doing a little bit of kettlebell stuff. So I suppose part of the gain could be putting on muscle mass, which weighs more than fat.

But I guess I'm going to have to get back to seriously watching my diet. I didn't think I was overdoing it or anything, but I did run out of "meal replacement" shakes (my usual lunch) a couple of weeks ago and hadn't bought a new case yet. I'll be remedying that ASAP.

I feel like I'm at least close to having the energy to get back on the bicycle, which will help as well.

And I pulled my old manual reel mower out of storage the other day, rather than continuing to futz with the fritzy electric mower. Using the reel mower will mean more regular mowing and harder work, which is actually a good thing from a fitness standpoint.

Wordle 737 Hint

Hint: An invited visitor or participant. 

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First Letter: G

You DON'T "Have to Accept Being in Deepfake Porn," Ms. Jankowicz

If someone with the technical means to put you there wants you there, you're going to be in deepfake porn whether you "accept" it or not.

And if someone wants to write a novel or screenplay that includes a character which is recognizably, even nearly exactly, you in fictionalized form, they're going to do that, too.

There's no such thing as "nonconsensual pornography" unless you're actually abducted and raped on camera -- in which case the porn is evidence in a criminal case for the abduction and rape.

No one needs your consent to fantasize about you and to make "creative works" depicting those fantasies. You do not own the way you look, sound, etc. Those are just facts of physical reality. They're inherently in the public domain.

Which, I suppose I should clearly state, doesn't make deepfake porn any less creepy or emotionally hurtful. But creepiness and emotional hurt don't violate your rights.

Wordle 736 Hint

Hint: For some contestants, this event lasts less than eight seconds. 

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First Letter: R

Well, It's a Slow News Day

Yes, really -- for me, anyway.

I write three op-eds a week, and today is one of the days I normally write an op-ed, publish it to the web at the Garrison Center, and submit it to a crap ton of newspapers.

An op-ed has to fit into the "news cycle" in a particular way. It has to be something that people are going to still read a few days from now.

For the next few days, I expect there to be one, and only one, story people are really going to be that into -- the Prigozhin "mutiny"/"coup" in Russia.

And that story is changing by the hour. If I wrote something right now, the facts would be so different than they are now by the time a newspaper editor had time to look at it that it would be ... "old news," even though it would be an opinion piece.

Sometimes an op-ed writer can pull off the Nostradamus routine, figure out what's about to happen, and put out a piece that reads as "fresh" a couple of days later.

I'm definitely not equipped to play Nostradamus on the Internet with respect to events in Russia over the next 24-48 hours.

I guess I may write something up on another topic, knowing that it's probably not going to get much love from the newspapers.

Or I may wait until tomorrow and see if any kind of clarity is emerging in Russia that I can riff on.

"Developing."

Update, Sunday, 6:40pm: Well, I did get a column written. Sorry, Thane, no bicycles this time ... but soon, very soon, I hope. This is one I expect to not get very many newspaper "pickups," as the subject matter is ... uncomfortable. But I don't like missing columns, and this was the only news hook I came across that seemed timely, and interesting, and that the facts were clear enough on to not have it quickly become obsolete (I was thinking of writing one on the Titan submersible incident, but that may have cleared the news cycle already, and if it hasn't it likely won't have by Tuesday, either).

Wordle 735 Hint

Hint: If you have a thousand bucks, you can afford to make entrances and finales of this type. 

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First Letter: G 

Wordle 734 Hint

Hint: I've got the solution to today's Wordle -- and you that solution very, very badly. 

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First Letter: C

Anyone Want to Win a $25k Prize?

All you have to do is develop "a constitution that is chosen, not imposed -- a real social contract."

See here for more info.

I briefly noticed it back in April when the notice went up, then got busy and forgot about it. Thanks to reader GregL for reminding me of it!

If you're interested and need any help, feel free to use the comment section below this post to hook up with others ("teams" are allowed). Unless I decide to throw in myself or join a team -- which I might do, I guess --- I'll be glad to exert some minimal effort helping anyone and everyone who asks, in any way I can, without demanding a portion of the prize money.

Glad

Tamara's in Denver at the Psychedelic Science 2023 conference. She was already in town for another conference for work, and since PS2023 relates to her work, she was able to wangle funding/permission to just stay for the second one.

When we last spoke, she'd been standing in line for more than an hour to get Stanislav Groff's autograph on a copy of the paper she wrote on his work back in her college days. She also saw Roland Griffiths speak this morning, and mentioned she was glad for him to be able to see such a huge gathering focused on psychedelic clinical research.

I'm glad that so many of the older people who were so willing, for so long, to be treated as pariahs to advance the study of psychedelics are finally getting their day in the sun. Should have been much sooner.

Can AI Save Itself With a Game of Tag?

Lots of people are pointing out an obvious problem with generative AI (here's an example), saving me the problem of really deep digging and extended explaining. The TL;DR:

• Generative AI "learns" by mining the web for text;
• Lots of people are using generative AI to create text for the web; so,
• At some point, generative AI is just reading its own past output (or the output of other generative AI); and,
• It stops "learning" anything new, just like you would if you stopped listening to other people and only talked to yourself, endlessly repeating stuff you'd already said in the past as the sole input for your thought processes.

Can that problem be solved?

I think it can.

One way to solve it is for AI to get really good at identifying AI-generated material so it can disregard that material as part of its "learning" input. And in the long run, that might be the superior option insofar as the "learning" involved in being able to make the distinction probably increases the overall "intelligence" considerably. Sort of the equivalent of being a human who gets better and better at assigning failing Turing Test grades to very smart AIs.

An easier way to solve at least part of the problem is for the makers of (assistants to?) generative AIs to agree on a meta tag, or some equivalent scheme that's maybe possible to implement without it being easily removed, which allows an AI to tell both itself and other AIs "this is AI-generated material -- don't use it to teach yourself."

Of course, those clever humans who don't want other humans to notice they're using AI-generated content would remove a simple meta tag, and work up schemes for removing other embedded data proving "their" stuff was AI-generated. But to the extent that such a scheme worked much at all, it would at least reduce the intensity/effects of feedback loop described.

Wordle 733 Hint

Hint: Some things you can do alone, but this is something you can only do with your buds. 

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First Letter: T

Wordle 732 Hint

Hint: Maybe it's a bird, maybe it's a machine for lifting and moving stuff, maybe it's a stretching of the neck ....

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First Letter: C

Almost There ...

According to Blogspot's stats, this site has racked up 2,974,248 views since January 1, 2011 (prior to which my recollection is that it had done somewhere in the 2-3 million view range from 2004-2011).

So I'm 25,752 shy of the 3 million mark.

And the count for May was 29,677.

So presumably some time in July.

Mentioning it now because I'm not sure I'll remember to check.

Wordle 731 Hint

Hint: The poet who came to a fork in the road and took it, or the Jack who nips at your nose.

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First Letter: F

"But Solar Power is INTERMITTENT!"

So is any kind of power delivered by a grid.

Home solar doesn't go out every time a tree falls on a line ten miles away.

Wordle 730 Hint

Hint: If you hum a happy tune, today's Wordle will play along.

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First Letter: K

"Testing the Waters"

So far a gigantic sample of (eight) Twitter followers tells me that I could pull 50% of the vote as a presidential candidate, with another 12.5% up for grabs if I made changes to my prospective campaign platform.

By my count, there are 481 electoral votes (from a total of 538, with 270 needed to win) available to write-in candidates. While 32 of those states require paperwork of one kind or another for a candidate's supporters' votes to actually be tallied, that doesn't seem like an impossibly high bar for even a sub-$5k campaign to get over.

And a plurality in fewer than 15 of the states that don't even require paperwork could get me to 270. For example, New York, Illinois, Missouri, Wisconsin (those are the four origin states of the foods mentioned in the initial campaign platform), California, Texas, Michigan, Ohio, New York, New Hampshire, Virginia, North Carolina, Georgia, and Florida would get me to 272 electoral votes.

I suppose I'd have to spend some money on food and photography, so as to have photos of myself tucking in to all the dishes I want to require federally funded dining facilities to serve. Preferably surrounded by supporters also enjoying said foods. Which might be tough, both in terms of either getting certain of the foods shipped to or prepared in Gainesville or traveling to the places where they're easily available, and in terms of finding enough supporters for credible "campaign event" presentation.

How far would I willing to bend on the terms of the campaign platform? Well, certainly as far allowing federally funded dining facilities to offer vegan/vegetarian takes on the included dishes. And possibly to adding other dishes, working out a formula for the requirements (e.g. a different kind of pizza can be offered each day, not necessarily all of them every day), etc. It's a work in progress on which I am willing both to be convinced and to bow to pressure if the pressure represents key voting blocs. 

Fortunately (or not), I wouldn't have to please Louisiana's jambalaya and po-boy lobby, as write-in votes aren't permitted there. But I could add one or both of those dishes just to see if I could spark a voter rebellion demanding the write-in vote.

Q: At what point have the people spoken?

A: Whenever a politician decides he's heard them say what he wanted to hear.

Which is not, I think, just yet. Eight Twitter followers is a small sample. And of course I'd like to hear the thoughts of my closest advisors. Including you.

Wordle 729 Hint

Hint: You should do today's Wordle as if you were a wallflower.

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First Letter: S

Wordle 728 Hint

Hint: You might raise your cattle on, or dip your chicken wings in, this.

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First Letter: R

Let Me Wax Un-Shermanesque for a Moment

I'm not declaring my candidacy for the presidency of the United States.

But if I decided to declare my candidacy for the presidency of the United States, I think I would be inclined to do so on a simple, single-plank platform that would no doubt enjoy unanimous voter support:

Every American should always be able to find something decent to eat within a reasonable distance of wherever he or she happens to be at any given moment. Therefore, as president, I would issue an executive order directing all federally funded dining facilities (military mess halls, VA and Medicare-accepting hospital cafeterias, etc.) to offer diners, seven days a week and a minimum of two meal time-frames daily, the four important variants of pizza (New York style in both the classic slice and Sicilian varieties, St. Louis style, and Chicago style), as well as Springfield style cashew chicken and Milwaukee style volcano chicken.

Wordle 727 Hint

 Hint: You might use one of these to deliver a beating, or to attach a watch to your wrist.

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First Letter: S

Sigh ...

I hate mowing. So much that I've written more than one piece on why lawns are stupid and suck.

But I've been doing quite a bit of mowing lately, for two reasons:

1. I have to, and
2. I'm committed to logging at least 10,000 steps per day (planning to increase that soon), and mowing racks up the steps

Unfortunately, after less than four years (which is three years longer than I really expected it to last), my little battery-powered mower shit the bed on me today.

I don't think it's the battery. I don't know if I burned the motor up, or if I just have a frayed wire somewhere and it's reparable at little or no cost. I guess I'll ask my mechanic/friend to pull out his little electric tester hangamajigger and see if he can discern what the problem is.

But I guess it's time to start looking for a new one anyway. And this time I'll go with a cutting width of more than 16". I may even see if I can find a decent deal on a riding mower. Which would mess up the whole 10,000 steps a day thing, but reduce the annoyance of mowing.

I Try to Take the U2 Attitude ...

... toward authors who always seem to be moving from platform to platform:

For one thing, one of my "day jobs" involves curating content from various authors at various locations. So I do try to keep up. But it's not always easy.

Which is why I'm loath to give up this blog at this location and on this platform after not quite 19 years in one place. If I suddenly decided to move to Substack, and then to Locals, and then maybe to Medium, how many of my readers would bother to try tracking me down just to keep up with me?

Yeah, I know I could keep posting annoying messages saying "I'm over here at [insert location] now." But that would be, well, annoying.

Wordle 726 Hint

Hint: The answer to today's Wordle is also the likely answer to the question "are you going to call Carly Rae Jepsen?"

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First Letter: M

Happy Flag Day!

Black Flag GIFfrom Black GIFs

Wordle 725 Hint

Hint: If you can't do the time, refrain from doing this.

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First Letter: C

Why Indict Trump in Florida? My Hypothesis ...

Florida's about as Trump-favorable a jurisdiction as he could ask for. So why indict him there instead of in Democrat-heavy DC, which the provenance of the classified documents at issue would seem to justify?

One obvious reason is that there's no way he's going to drag the thing out with a change of venue effort.

But I think there's more to it than that.

It virtually guarantees a hung jury.

Which means that Smith gets to publicly prove his case beyond a reasonable doubt, to the satisfaction of anyone who lives in the real world -- but won't have to deal with the numerous issues involving how to imprison a former, and possibly future, president.

House arrest? Build him his own wing a la his close friend Jeffrey Epstein, to house him and his Secret Service detail? Maybe with "work release" for campaign events or to spend his days in the Oval Office? And then have every federal inmate declaring for the presidency and demanding similar digs/conditions? It's a whole pallet of cases of canned worms, and a conviction would open Every. Fucking. Can. Without really hurting his prospects any more than just having everyone know he's guilty, as they surely will, would.

Wordle 724 Hint

Hint: Today's Wordle is often musical in nature, but let's get poetic instead: It rhymes with a failing grade or your discarded household items.

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First Letter: P

Wordle 723 Hint

 Hint: Today's Wordle just ain't right.

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First Letter: W

Sort of a Bad Weekend ...

I'm still hoping to get my weekend Garrison Center column out this weekend, but it's been one of those weekends.

I spent a good part of Saturday afternoon and evening, and part of this morning, over at my mechanic's house/shop, helping him with various things including work on Tamara's "new" 2006 Honda CR-V. It needed a new water pump, thermostat, housing, etc., and a right CV axle. I'm not a mechanic, but I can carry stuff around, find relevant wrenches, etc. so that Bobby can focus on doing the stuff he's good at and I'm not.

In between all that, I came home last night well after my normal bedtime, got all the grease off, etc., turned out the light ... and about an hour later, Tamara woke me up to tell me that my dog, Cookie Monster, had died. She was lying on the floor near Tamara, who was watching TV, and at some point was just gone. No struggle, etc. Just went to sleep and didn't wake up. Tamara looked down, thought her posture looked a little strange, and then saw that she wasn't breathing.

I buried her this morning. I think she was about 13 years old, but that's based on the claim from the people who gave her to me that she was four when I got her.

Anyway, hopefully next weekend will be better and less eventful.

Wordle 722 Hint

 Hint: Among other words that come in a pair with today's Wordle answer one, a military version might be "national," while a deodorant brand might be "Right."

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First Letter: G

Wordle 721 Hint

Hint: Once more. Doesn't matter whether it's with or without feeling, but once more.

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First Letter: A

Wordle 720 Hint

Hint: This wood is often used in model airplanes -- and sometimes in "real" ones.

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First Letter: B

Wordle 719 Hint

Hint: Cartoonist, born in 1943, who just keeps on truckin'.

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First Letter: C

Wordle 718 Hint

Hint: If a bunch of people were asked for a synonym or example of this word, the set of answers would likely include "Nazi," "Klansman," "anti-semite," "homophobe," etc.

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First Letter: H

Lies, Damn Lies, and Fitbit Warnings

I've been wearing the new Fitbit Versa 4 for a week or so, but I can't really review it yet ... because it's telling me things that may or may not be true. If they're true, I guess I have to highly recommend it. If they're false, well, not.

Let me go through the things I really like about it first:

• A larger and more intuitive display than my previous fitness tracker, the Amazfit Band 5.
• The ability to actually answer phone calls and talk right from my wrist (as long as my phone is close enough by to be linked/synced with the smart watch).
• I can talk to Alexa through it (for example, when I'm nearing the end of my morning walk, I can say to my watch "turn on the espresso machine" and my morning shots will be just about brewed by the time I walk in the door).
• On the "sedentary alert" front, instead of just buzzing me at me if I don't move often enough, it actively alerts me at 10 minutes before the hour as to how many more steps I need to take to meet my minimum 250-per-hour goal (and lets me set the morning start and evening cut-off to such alerts).
• Once I replaced the default silicone band, very comfy (I had to do the same thing with the Amazfit).

I'm not inclined to complain when a research study offers to send me a $200 smart watch.

BUT!

There are certain functions that seem to be behind a premium paywall that were free in Amazfit's app (for example, on-demand blood oxygen measurement). They're offering me a six-month free trial, but I'm a little bit against the whole idea on principle. Someone paid $200 for this watch, and then I'm supposed to pay more to have it give me information that I know it's collecting already?

I mention blood oxygen because, even though it doesn't seem to be set up to let me check mine, it's certainly tracking the info, as on a couple of different mornings it's informed me that my blood oxygen had some "high variability" during the night, and that this might be an indicator of e.g. sleep apnea. And it does give me a running average on blood oxygen ... an average which is low (94-95%) compared to what the Amazfit always indicated, what I've always shown using my little finger clamp pulse oximeter that I can't find at the moment, and what I was told I was running when I recently underwent a pulmonary function test at an actual pulmonary medical office -- 98-99%.

I've also previously used other sleep apps on my phone that listened to me through the night and indicated no breathing problems (they would detect a snore maybe once every week or two, and record it so I could listen to it -- it would be literally one or two little honkers, then back to quiet sleeping). The Amazfit's sleep analysis also gave me a clean bill on that. And my wife says she hasn't noticed any snoring, snorting, or other weird sleep breathing. Which she would notice. So I'm skeptical that the blood oxygen measurement is accurate or that it means what the warning says it could mean. I wonder if I'm fidgeting with the band in my sleep or something, causing the measurement apparatus to be inaccurate?

More worryingly, on two consecutive mornings, I woke up to find out that the Fitbit was telling me a fib, over and over. A fib as in afib -- atrial fibrillation. Not a diagnosis, but multiple warnings saved overnight that my heart rate variability indicated the possibility of afib.

It's been a few years since I did a stress test and echocardiogram, but those were clean (other than discovering that my heart is "wired backward," aka "left branch bundle block," causing EKG readings to make doctors blanch and think I've had a damaging coronary). My doctor listens to my heart every 3-6 months, and is on high alert about it since she knows my entire family is prone to heart problems. And I'm pretty sure the pulmonary thing included a lead to monitor my pulse for any regularities while I was blowing as hard as I could into a mouthpiece, etc.

But, of course, I am still worried and will discuss this with my primary doc next month when I go in for my next visit.

I think that the Versa 4 is probably either over-sensitive or inaccurate. But I don't know yet.

If it turns out that I have sleep apnea and/or afib, I'll obviously be grateful to Fitbit for letting me know about that. If I have neither one, my actual review will reflect those warnings as value-reducing unnecessary alarm.

"I might as well comment on general health while I'm at it" update, about 5:15pm -- So, I quit smoking a month and a week ago ... since which I've lost about a pound and a half of weight. Why? Well, even though I've felt so non-energized that getting on the bicycle and going anywhere at all distant seems impossible, I have been walking at least 10,000 steps per day, and knocking off of food, caffeine, and nicotine (I've continued using On! nicotine pouches, but am down to a few a day and only a 2mg dosage per pouch) at 6pm, and drinking at least two liters of water per day, replacing a lot of my previous diet soda intake. I've also been doing some light plank workouts, usually a couple of sets of halos with my 35-pound kettlebell, etc. So I'm not physically inactive. I feel like I'm getting somewhere. And speaking of the quitting smoking, this is the second time I've done so for long enough to notice that at a certain point I get a "productive" cough, presumably stuff coming out of my lungs that smoking put there and kept there over the years. I wonder if that might be clogging up my breathing every once in a while at night and causing the blood oxygen/heart rate anomalies?

Wordle 717 Hint

 Hint: Three varieties of today's Wordle: Boy, Girl, and International Harvester.

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First Letter: S

Wordle 716 Hint

 Hint: Today's Wordle makes me feel tired, bored, and disgusted.

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First Letter: E

Wordle 715 Hint

Hint: In Whoville, he's a roast; in the Bible, he's a very bad dude from area code 666.

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First Letter: B

Wordle 714 Hint

Hint: Famous ones include Mary Poppins and Euphegenia Doubtfire.

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First Letter: N

Wordle 713 Hint

Hint: Arizona boasts a "dry heat." Florida's heat is more like this.

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First Letter: H

Should Tom Ascol Be Put to Death?

According to him, if he has ever  (among other things) worked between sundown on Friday and sundown on Saturday, the answer is yes.

Thanks For Asking! -- 06/01/23

I stopped smoking a month ago yesterday and I'm still pretty crabby about it. But ask me anything (yes, anything) in the comment thread below this post, and I'll try not to bite your head off when I answer (in comments, or linked from comments)!

Wordle 712 Hint

Hint: Jeffrey Allen Townes, who once worked with the Fresh Prince, is this kind of DJ.

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First Letter: J