Happy Friday to all the wonderful citizens in the City of Claycord.
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Book report: The Worlds of Robert A. Heinlein, 1939. 1940,1952, 1962. 6 stories in less than 200 pages. Pandora’s Box: mostly the introduction but a really long one. Interesting though. Free Men: fight against invaders. Blowups Happen: what happened on the moon. Searchlight: A blind woman lost on the moon. Life-Line: one of the more interesting stories. Solution Unsatisfactory: what if? This book was in the car as my “hurry up and wait” book so it took me a while to read it all the way to end. Short stories are a great way to pass time while waiting for anything.
I haven’t read much Heinlein, but what I have read I don’t remember. You start reviewing some Andre Norton, I’m all over that though.
She is in the same box as Heinlein and other SF authors. I have over a dozen of hers lined up for when I finish the SF in this box. When I get to her I’ll line them up by date published so hang in there.
The daily news reads like science fiction but it is of course science faction or just the news. Sci-fi authors wrote lots about these days.
Pick One:
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A) Hoppin’ John
B) Texas Caviar
C) Yuck
S ~
I’m going to have to try both, … Thanks for Sharing.
Going to try your Chili Relleno Casserole recipe soon!
MMMmmm, time for some fusion…
Leftovers: Black Eyes & Relleno
Just the thought making my mouth water….
Oh Yeah! It does sound good.
OK, heard of neither of these, but methinks Texas caviar is probably something I would not want, whether it be from cow, sheep or lamb. Assuming Hoppin’ John is the same, as after removal, John would be hoppin’. May be wrong, and not gonna look it up and ruin the concept in my skull. If it is what I think, yikes would be more appropriate than yuck.
C) Must be the “mystery menu” of the week. Never heard of A or B.
Here you go.
https://www.southernliving.com/recipes/classic-hoppin-john-recipe
I haven’t tried either one but I think I’d like (A) the best.
https://www.yummly.com/recipe/Texas-Caviar-510781?prm-v1
Oh yes, black eyed peas. I used to make a black eyed pea with cabbage and cheese dish. I’ve still got an old package of black eyed peas. Beans last forever, centuries even.
@S…. I’ll take my black eyed peas straight up, with hocks or shanks. My pea to pinto bean ratio is about 1 pot of peas to 10 pots of pintos. I just tried some, new to me, beans called Anasazi Beans, I may liked them better than any beans I cook. They’re smaller than pintos and have white spots on them, they’re really good., Amazon has them. A pot is going in my slow cooker tonight late.
Anasazi B’s are very good, but pricey, so only on occasion for me
🙂
@S….Sort of for beans….6-1lb bags for $24 from Amazon, not bad. I can get a lot of bowls out of a $4 a bag. Hocks and shanks are pricey now days.
“B”
.
Have to say, I’m a bit of a purist with my BEP’s…. Fresh Ham Hock or Salt Pork and that’s about it.
However I do like the ‘A’ & ‘B’ also…
Picked “B” for the refreshing spicy taste with the BEP’s
.
Side Note: Have a large pot of Bourbon Onions goin’ already….
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Time for cup # 3….
🙂
@S….I’ve been making cream of tomato soup the last couple of weeks. Real easy, not many ingredients. Always just ate Campbell’s soup out of can made with milk instead of water. This homemade really kicks butt, still keeping a couple of cans of Campbell’s in the pantry inventory though.
Again I have no idea what you’re talking about. And again, D) Tater Tots 😎
Cowellian’s first,
It’s been a very long day, but I got here as soon as I could.
COWELLIAN ~
Glad you made it here!
Thanks, Roz! I’m delighted to be here,
I don’t like country music, but I don’t mean to denigrate those who do. And for the people who like country music, denigrate means ‘put down’.
–Bob Newhart
Can’t like that, won’t like that. I dig country.
I use to say I didn’t like country music, about the only music genre that I didn’t care for, since I like jazz, rock and roll, classical, folk and crooner style (probably forgot some). However, I do like several of Johnny Cash’s songs. I recently discovered “A long black veil”, which is a country song, I especially like the version by The Band, sung by Rick Danko. There are other country songs I like. I don’t care for the heavy metal Rock and Roll bands for the most part.
It is possible to talk about music and not bring up The Band. Go ahead, bet you can do it.
Probably not I’m obsessed with them, their music, their story, their personalities.
Oh and I left out the looks of Robbie Robertson and Rick Danko, when they were young, probably have a lot to do with my obsession.
Guess I lost that bet.
Atticus, i will try to restrain myself, just for you. Don’t want to promise too much though.
Remember when . . . . .
http://tinyurl.com/yjt6jrjc
I was down at the waterfront park today and noticed that most the people were walking dogs… in the game preserve section (the county side). I haven’t seen any park police patrols on weekends recently so they were lucky because the last I checked it was a $300 fine for walking a dog there. The dog walkers seem to be oblivious to the signs at the entrance. Dogs are okay in the city side.
It’s nice you have a constructive and fulfilling way to spend your day. A lot of people aren’t so lucky. 😁
Anyone else a little bitter?
https://www.ktvu.com/news/pge-profits-soar-after-rate-hikes
Having the CPUC help PG&E make bigger profits is called “fascism”, a true example of it. Vanguard and Black Rock love it. It’s a gangland economy. 😡
Your definition of fascism is technically and fundamentally incorrect.
If you have small gnats on soil of house plants or seedlings for this summer’s vegetable garden, could be you’ve got Fungus Gnats. Take an old pair of panty hose use one leg and put a mosquito dunks in it and suspend it in your watering can. Dunk slowly releases Bacillus thuringiensis subspecies israelensis that kills larval stage of Fungus Gnats as well as mosquito larval stage. Use treated water for vegetable seed sprouting all the way thru repotting.
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Six on a blister pack sells for around $10.
I didn’t really need anything more to worry about, but thanks I guess. 😝
PBS is airing Barbra Streisand Back to Brooklyn from 2013 and it is wonderful.Sounds great, looks great and I fell in love with her all over again. 💘
Around the hollidays, my parents would break out their Barbra Streisand Christmas album. She has a beautiful voice.
But I still find it ironic.
This little drummer made me smile so hard I may have a tiny stroke:
https://youtube.com/shorts/8s3kvcaluwY?si=TyrU7GrKjcfwu3Zg
I was out doing errands today, and was driving on multiple main thoroughfares throughout Concord. What a disaster! They were potholes., And depressions and rough roads everywhere. The city Council should be ashamed of the way they have let our roads deteriorate. I think the Birson and the rest of the city Council should get off their collective asses and address the issue before our roads become one gigantic pothole.
Ruh Roh Raggy
another huge rounds of Macy’s closures on the horizon.
Hanne, you gonna ride it out or jump ship?
I think my store is safe, we are very busy. In any case I’m not too worried, I could retire, or semi retire and sell a little insurance to supplement my income.
Does anyone remember what the old toy store in the 1980s at the Willows Shopping Center was called? I cannot remember for the life of me!
B G Hobby?
Mid-Week Pick One:
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A) J. J. Newberry
B) Sprouse-Reitz
C) Tater Tots
That bad kitchen GFCI we had recently, my old definitely not as fast as it used to be brain had an idea.
Bought a couple 4 outlet 15 amp power strips with short 20 inch cord off Amazon and plugged it into GFCI. Now we’ll plug appliances in and out of power strip, is allot cheaper to replace than a GFCI outlet.
Yeah! Good shake out here in Tule Land!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rJoTiZ0tHYc
3.8 in Disco Bay
Shaking it up again tonight…. 3.0
Who is Jeremiah Foster and why is there the Sheriff’s helicopter flying around over Pittsburg calling his name?
Who is John Galt and why did it take 1,168 pages to not find out?
Ok, here’s my deal. Since it’s clear it’s ‘if you can’t beat them, join them as far as AI goes, I thought it best to educate myself. So I found this free, 9-10 hr Introduction To Artificial Intelligence course IBM offers (https://skillsbuild.org/ ) and off I went. Once I got my head around logistic and linear regression and hidden layers and bias, intentional and otherwise I pulled down MicroSoft’s CoPilot. It’s a user friendly front end for GPT and it’s great for recipes and the other usual drollery of internet searches. Not so good on porn.
But I thought I’d dig deep and ask it for some math and to that I could find no fault, even with my admitted limitations.
Next I asked for Hitler’s phone number at the Kehlsteinhaus (Eagle’s Nest in German above Berchtesgaden and Hitler’s mountain retreat.) I had that number years ago as my aunt was a research librarian at the Brooklyn Public Library because that’s apparently what research librarians did to show off. But I lost it when I got married. But damn did CoPilot dummy up. Refused to provide any information on Hitler. Refuses to discuss controversial public figures. Now after asking about Ayn Rand and Norm Chomsky I found out the guard rails were there, but selective. And annoying.
Next I asked for a load recipe for .308 with a “24 inch barrel, Accurate Brand Powder Type 4064 and Sierra Match King 155gr Palma’s that would hold six foot groups at 1000 yards. Now I already know this recipe. Know my BDC for 155 gr .308s out of a 24” barrel out way past 1000. Not hard information to find. Again it refused to provide any load recipes, though this load is available publicly in several companies load manuals.
We have all read a lot about built in bias in AI systems and specifically LLMs. And one of the challenges, and therefore one of the promises of the developer’s was to be aware of that bias and counter it. My problem is they’ve over corrected. By refusing to discuss or provide information on controversial subjects, and only some undersexed pinheads deciding what’s controversial, this is gonna get out of hand real quick.
Any thoughts anyone? Anyone playing with these AI applications? Are you breaking it too?
Alexa says my kindness “really gives her a charge”.