So this book was in my Amazon recommendations  – I have an interest in the science and the ethics of such.

It’s by Jennifer A. Doudna and Samuel H. Sternberg and called “”A Crack in Creation: Gene Editing and the Unthinkable Power to Control Evolution”

I’ve only just finished reading the introduction and I’ve annotated several things already. For example, her inclusion of faith leaders in the discussion. As you already know I think that faith leaders are pretty much charlatans because I know their God, Jesus and the Devil were a Roman neigh Turkish creation.

But I’m fascinated – I mean labs have already made modified Beagles that were super muscular. They’ve done it with mice too. That’s the side I think I have a problem with. Making people stronger or smarter isn’t the way I think we should go – instead making people healthier is more in line with my thinking.

I’m in the section now how the technology evolved. That part fascinates me – seeing how it came about. I’ve read a lot of books that examined the genesis of technology we now take for granted. Should be a fun read.

I’ve gotten really sick and tired of Windows 10 and it’s stupid update schema. I suppose I wouldn’t mind so much if my machine wasn’t unusable for ten minutes.

For example first you get this non-helpful screen that admonishes you not to power off your computer. I can tell you from experience you can shut your computer down – it just backs off any changes that were made and boots as it last did.  But here’s the non-helpful screen:

Getting Windows ready? Really that’s all you could come up with? Microsoft sucks.

And then there’s the thing, it’ll get to 30% and then force a reboot.

Then after the reboot it continues on through the install counting up to 100% and then you’re presented with login. It really annoys the piss out of me as this happens, at least lately three times a month. Three. Get your fucking act togethe Microsoft!

So as you know, I’m an assertive driver. It’s how I learned to drive – my first driving lesson I was taken out on the highway and told “Stomp on the gas”. Ever since that’s the way I believe a car should be driven.

What irks me though is brought on by me keeping right. I try to keep right because the distances are fairly short and even at 50MPH you get there. So what irks me – you’re in the right lane and people are entering. The way I learned it, you don’t have to slow down they have to get up to speed.

But alas some of the time you end up doing 60MPH and some nitwit jumps out doing 35MPH. If there’s one thing I have a strong dislike for it’s timid drivers. Your car is perfectly capable of going past 3,000 RPM so stomp on that pedal. Just stomp – most cars no use fuel injection – so it’s pretty easy to get fuel to the cylinders. Plus cars now have enough safety features built in, things like air bags, mandatory seat belt usage, crush zones, anti-lock brakes, and even blind spot monitoring. Cars now are safer than they’ve ever been. So why haven’t our speed limits kept pace? I’ll tell you why – it’s because speed enforcement revenue is important.

And I take that thing about getting to speed seriously – sometimes of course you can’t like getting on I-95 Northbound from where I live. It’s the area where everything dumps into I-95 prime among them RI Route 10 and RI Route 6 plus the mall and downtown connectors. So you’re lucky to be doing 25MPH. But just jump one lane left and you can stomp on the gas and get to 55MPH.

And coming south to get home from the supermarket today. Saw three RI State Police vehicles, one unmarked, one SUV and one cruiser flying down the left lane of RI-146 lights on. Fortunately they immediate jumped into the far left lane of I-95 and sped off.

The above photos are the turkey preparation photos. First I seasoned with the salt, pepper and sugar mixture. Then seared skin side down to put what I consider a light sear on everything. Then I put them into the sous vide bags – and added rosemary, sage and thyme and a small pat or two of butter as is evident. Unsalted butter and Kerry Gold my favorite. The legs and wings are in at 158F – I’ll let that go for about 12 hours and then drop the temp down to 135F and but the seared breasts in. Right now they’re chilling out in the fridge.

Now the carcass and giblets – first I sauteed some onion, carrot and celery then in went the neck and cut up giblets. Then the carcass and enough water to cover. The stock is in two words fucking awesome. It’s funny the gravy I make from this will be for the turkey and stuffing. No mashed potatoes this year. Just the turkey, stuffing, home made cranberry sauce and some steamed and sauteed broccoli along with butternut squash.

So there were a few interesting discussions had – one on the complete lack of security on the CAN bus present in every single motor vehicle out there. But the other was more worthy of a long post.

It had to do with Brexit, the exit of the UK from the European Union. I did a little prognosticating and a few things emerged.

First, by leaving the E.U. Britain will suffer from tariff exhaustion – thereby causing the price of retail goods to rise astronomically. That’s a big one – rampant inflation won’t be pretty. And a destitute nation has this propensity to grow demagogues that rise to power and remember, Britain itself still has a nuclear navy though a lot of her ships are in Scotland. You could well see Britain attack France or Germany this time around.

Another thing emerged – it was the suburban and rural dwellers in Britain that pushed the Brexit – it didn’t pass in the London area or any of the more urban settings.

Oh yeah and Scotland – they fully intend to break out of the UK and stay in the E.U. If that happens get ready to see northern Ireland go too.

It’s funny – we suffer the same problem here in the U.S. The people from the hinterlands are the enemy of we urban dwellers. That’s something to keep in mind.

We also talked about airports and how they suck in the U.S. One person mentioned the airport in Singapore – where the services like massage chairs, movies etc. are presented free of charge. I mentioned we could have that in the United States but we’d charge a pretty penny for it. And then we got on the TSA – or Security Theater – I mentioned the Red team tests the TSA has done where 95% of the contraband went right through TSA scanning without a raised eyebrow.

So an entertaining Thanksgiving to say the least.

Yet another year has gone by. I’m doing well – my investments are appreciating, I’m in line for another military-industrial I.T. job, and all is well.

However this is the season of ambivalent emotion. Ambivalent because I know of the slaughter of 20 million or more of the native inhabitants of this continent. And that what we celebrate as Thanksgiving is just the federally mandated holiday.

And I keep seeing everyone online saying spend the day with your family. I don’t have much family left. Grandparents are gone, parents are gone. I’m it and I don’t have any kids so there’s that.

Someone got a texted pic of our nephew’s report card. He’s in the 3rd grade and his highest scores were in Music, Math and Science in that order too.

I think us shipping him the books that we do, the Amazon Fire tablet all helped. Hopefully he can maintain interest in those fields as they will serve him well throughout his life.

 

So it came out a while ago but it’s from BBC America and it’s called Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency.

Now it’s funny  – it’s the third to last book that Douglas Adams ever wrote. And I’m now into Episode 3 on Hulu. It’s weird – tried to watch it on BBC America but because I don’t have a cable TV subscription I couldn’t. But good thing come to those who wait – indeed I finished watching Future Man and the next epsiode to pop up on Hulu was the above.

I see elements too of DGHDA (Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency) plus The Long Dark Tea Time of the Soul where the gods are in fact walking the earth.

So if you have a hulu account – go watch. It’s uproariously funny.

 

It’s called Future Man – the whole series thus far has been one laugh fest. Stuff you never see coming.

Short post because I don’t want to destroy it for anyone. Let’s just say lots of time travel and the hijinks that go along with it. It’s a Hulu exclusive – they produced it.

Macaroni and Cheese. Let me explain, it used 2 cups of shredded Kerry Gold Reserve Cheddar, 2 cups of shredded Le Gruyere cheese, some Kerry Gold unsalted butter, Goats Milk, three Lobster tails, chopped up and sauteed in that same butter with some salt and pepper, then some crab meat. And I used just 12oz. of pasta – that’s the key with Mac and Cheese, if you want a creamier version use less pasta.

It was fucking awesome. It started with a simple 4tbsp butter to 4tbsp flour roux. Add in salt, pepper, paprika, dijon, worcestershire, and freshly grated nutmeg. Then pout in a cup of cold goats milk, then 3 more cups. Run up the temp to about 150F. Remove from heat and stir in shredded cheese. And add in previously prepared lobster and crab.

Then that goes over cooked pasta. I did mine in an 8×8 buttered non stick pan. Here’s what it looks like:

Definitely looks good.