Month: August 2018

How my Atheism came about

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All the time I see how most people became atheists in their middle age. Me I started very early.

You see my early schooling it was all in Catholic schools. Not a bad way to go as the academic side was a bit more rigorous than the public schools. It’s just they tried to instill religion in all of us and I wasn’t buying it.

The whole idea of transubstantiation left me cold. Because someone says a few magic words over the crackers and wine it’s the body and blood of Christ? Way to go with ritual cannibalism.  That added to the holy trinity – how God, Jebus and the Holy Spirit are one and the same. That smacks of unadulterated bullshit there. But I made my first communion, and begrudgingly my confirmation.

You see by the time I’d made my confirmation it was the year after we studied the Bible in one of our religion classes. It’s where we learned of translation error, copy error, and the propensity of scribes to editorialize. It explained the parts of the Bible that seemed very contradictory. Boiled down, it’s mostly bullshit plain and simple. So much so that I stopped going to church. And of course a year or two earlier when my mom passed away – that fucking priest Father David – seeing my dad pick that priest up by the neck – well I knew then. It was all about the money.

So I stopped going to church cold. I felt it was better for me to sleep in on a Sunday than to get up early to go and hear the same useless platitudes. Now fast forward to the mid 1980’s. One day I’m driving down RI-15 (Mineral Spring Ave.) in North Providence and I see my dad’s name on the benefactors board. I asked my dad about it, a nice five figure sum was given to the church to annul his new wife’s former marriage. Again, all about the money.

And what I’ve learned about mankind – it’s all about the money everywhere. Even me – I demand a commensurate salary. There’s no going back.

Then of course I happened on a series on Netflix about the Borgia family. It was an interesting look at the popes – and their able assistants.

Then of course there are the Bishops and Cardinals who looked the other way while priests abused kids. Not only is this a serious detriment to their credibility but that those same Bishops and Cardinals looked the other way. For example, the current Bishop of Providence – he knew about a certain priest and stood by and did NOTHING. Not a damned thing. I wonder how he can sleep at night.

So now you know why I’m an atheist.

Sunday Dinner

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So for dinner this evening I had an 8 pack of skin on bone in chicken thighs. Took the big bone out of the thighs and heated a cast iron pan to medium and in went a little vegetable oil and some unsalted butter. Seasoned the chicken with just salt and pepper and put them in a cast iron pan, skin side down for four minutes. Then flipped over for four minutes.

Into the toaster oven on warm. Then I chopped up some onion, mushrooms and garlic. Onions went into the pan the chicken fried in on medium heat for 5 minutes, then the garlic went in until fragrant then mixed into the onions then the mushrooms. Enough fat in the pan to add a tablespoon of AP flour, and then a little white wine and water. Reduced the liquid to half volume.

Steamed some broccoli and seasoned it with salt and pepper.

Plated it up – chicken thighs with the onion/garlic/mushroom gravy and then the broccoli.

Gotta say it, keeping it simple is the best way to cook.

Dinner on a Saturday

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So I had some onion, garlic, parsley, lemon. Along with 5oz. of Salmon. Plus a little lobster paste.

So I sauteed the garlic and onion, then chopped up the parsley with a bit of lemon zest.

Then added the salmon and the lobster paste to the dish along with some water. That over polenta was delicious.

Talk about a cheap meal too.

 

Job Interview time again

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Well – I took the last year off from work. But an opportunity right up my alley came up. You see I’m a Senior Linux Engineer at heart – this position wants mid-level but here’s the interesting part.

You see the headhunter contacted me today. And when he and I spoke he said I’d hear from him in the afternoon to setup a phone interview. Well he emails – in person interview on Friday.

Usually if they jump over the phone interview to the in-person I’ve pretty much got the job.

This one pays alright but it’s only managed 12 Linux servers. I told the headhunter I’ve been in places where I managed up to 200 servers. Plus it’s local so easy commute and little to no commuter costs. I can walk to the office – Google Maps says 30 minutes but I walk a bit faster so maybe 20-25 minutes. Not bad. Only time it’ll suck is in the winter but past few years we really haven’t gotten an extreme winter.

PowerShell for Windows

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So Microsoft likes to say it’s bridging the Windows and Linux/Unix world. I call bovine effluent on that. Why?

I’ve been getting familiar with PowerShell and I see that ls and cat work. But no head function at all . Guess I’ll have to roll my own. Pain in the ass.

Guess I can just fire up my Centos install on my VM and use that.

Making Savory Oatmeal

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So today I didn’t want a ton of sweetener in oatmeal. I chopped a little onion, some parsley and garlic – sauteed that in butter and a little beef fat. Then added chili powder, cumin, paprika, salt, pepper and a little cinnamon.

You’ll need 1/2 chopped onion – chop it fine if you can.

Bunch up the parsley and slice across. Maybe 1 or 2 tablespoons.

If you want fresh garlic chop up about a tablespoon worth – for convenience you can use the big jars of chopped garlic.

For spices – a tablespoon of Chili Powder, a dash of cumin and paprika and maybe a tablespoon of cinnamon. Then salt and pepper to taste.

Make the oatmeal with the water and salt. Then stir in some of the sauteed onion, garlic and parsley with the spices. It’s easy  – tastes awesome. No added sugar necessary.

Biases in Documentaries on Food

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So when someone went to the doctor she recommended this video:

I note that comments on the video are disabled. Which is the reason I’m posting this here. You see there’s a strong anti-meat and dairy message in this video. And I have no interest in becoming a vegetarian or vegan.

And the carcinogens – it has something to do with the Maillard reaction when we cook food – it’s responsible for the browning of meat and baked goods. And in the process it may produce a chemical that is in fact a carcinogen.

But take chicken – they recommend you cook it to 165F – but I know through experience 150F for 10-30 minutes is enough to kill most pathogens. This came about when I started with sous vide cooking.

Plus the guy who produces the ‘documentary’ is a hypochondriac. He admits it at the beginning.

Now the thing is – there is lots of conflicting information out there. One that I’m convinced is sugar – look at all the products in your pantry – I guarantee more than 50% will have added sugar. And I’ve posted in the past about Ancel Keys – the one I’d like piss on his bones and then stomp on them. He’s the Son of a Bitch who said fats were evil, and of course he was paid by the sugar industry.

But this video says meats are carcinogenic. Well yeah the way people cook is a big part of the problem.

And people need to understand that humans need fat too – the myelin that coats our nerves is fat derived.

But as the video goes on it’s pretty clear the guy making the documentary dances around the real issue. He discovers to his horror that the ACS, ADS etc. are funded by the food industry. If he could just make the cognitive jump – we need a constitutional amendment that corporations are not people.

And FYI I did a contract at a grocery scoring company – I’ve posted before how broccoli by itself scores nearly 100 points, but add cheese to it and the score plummets dramatically. Needless to say I only spent a few months doing that.

Like I said, only reason I’m posting this is because they disable comments on the video.

Horror – French Press cylinder

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So I was about to make some coffee yesterday. The cabinet popped open as it is wont to do and out slide a large plastic plate and in slow motion I watched it smash the glass cylinder of the French Press. {sigh}

Fully versed in the methods of Murphy I start thinking. I have an electric tea pot where you can vary the temperature. So took 1.5oz. of coffee dumped it in, put about a liter of water in and set the temp to 190.

The pot has a nice feature – once it reaches temperature it maintains it with a Keep Warm function. So timed out 3 minutes and the coffee came  out – it has a screen on the water output side but I bolstered that with a little bit of cheesecloth.

Guess I’ll have to order a new borosilicate glass cylinder again. Go thought about one a year.

A tech moment

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So I had been using my phones networking for a few days while a net service issue was repaired. In a word – it’s a 4G phone and net services remind me of dial-up. Probably time for a new phone but I digress.

So when I was done using the phones net services I looked in usage and saw the disable net services slider. So I slid it. Didn’t think more of it – but it’s then I noted Google Voice, and a few other things stopped working. And the little 4G icon disappeared. Go back in turn mobile data on and wonder of wonders the little 4G icon lights up.