We are a commune of inquiring, skeptical, politically centrist, capitalist, anglophile, traditionalist New England Yankee humans, humanoids, and animals with many interests beyond and above politics. Each of us has had a high-school education (or GED), but all had ADD so didn't pay attention very well, especially the dogs. Each one of us does "try my best to be just like I am," and none of us enjoys working for others, including for Maggie, from whom we receive neither a nickel nor a dime. Freedom from nags, cranks, government, do-gooders, control-freaks and idiots is all that we ask for.
Being fresh out of game bones and game carcasses, I made 2 gallons of something between stock and glace. It's rich enough to turn into firm gelatin when put in the fridge.
I sauteed a pile of chopped carrots, onions, whole head or two of garlic, celery (all skin on) in olive oil until browned.
You always brown bones, meat, and carcasses for a French, Anglo, or American stock. I browned a pile of veal bones, chicken wings, a chicken carcass, and turkey legs in the oven. Then I threw it all in the stewpot with a jug of Chardonnay, a bottle of cheap ruby port, some water, a handful of fresh thyme sprigs and a handful of fresh parley, a handful of frozen blueberries, half of a small can of tomato paste, a handful of dried oyster and porcini mushrooms, and a handful of peppercorns, and low-simmered it all for 6 hours. Three hours with lid on, three hours with lid off.
Then I strained it all, and I am reducing it a bit more. Smells good. Not sure what I would call this, except delicious and fragrant. Not for beef, though. As a base, you can add currants or berries or berry jam to it for a venison sauce, some chopped apple for a pork sauce, mushrooms for a poultry sauce, etc.
It's glace when a stock is reduced to a syrupy state, which I rarely if ever do. You have had glace in restaurants though, on the plate under a piece of meat. I just aim for a thick, intense stock and I call it "jus" or "gravy," although it is not gravy. It's super-jus.
4:32 Now the whole group of those who believed were of one heart and soul, and no one claimed private ownership of any possessions, but everything they owned was held in common.
4:33 With great power the apostles gave their testimony to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and great grace was upon them all.
4:34 There was not a needy person among them, for as many as owned lands or houses sold them and brought the proceeds of what was sold.
4:35 They laid it at the apostles' feet, and it was distributed to each as any had need.
A convection oven is a handy item. All modern ovens have the convection setting. However, you must bear in mind that you must reduce the heat and reduce the time.
But it is today's matinee at the Met. A thriller. Don Carlo -Don Carlos. "Joe Green," as my Dad called him, did quite a job with this story. Pop genius of his era, and now it is considered "Classical Music." Crazy.
You live in a bubble and you see no need for an open society or for maintaining the integrity of institutions such as journalism or the scientific community. The very idea of objectivity is at odds with your entire way of thinking because it presumes that there is some higher truth than the one propounded by the progressive reality-based community. And you know, with the casual faith of any born believer, that this is not possible.
If on a summer afternoon a man should find himself in love with only one woman in a sea of women, all the others mere half-naked swimmers and floaters, and if that one woman therefore is clad in radiance while the mere others are burdened by their bikinis, then what does he do with a world suddenly so small, the once unbiased sun shining solely on her? And if that afternoon turns dark, fat clouds like critics dampening the already wet sea, does the man run - he normally would - for cover, or does he dive deeper in, get so wet he is beyond wetness in an underworld utterly hers? And when he comes up for air, as he must, when he dries off and dresses up, as he must, how will the pedestrian streets feel? What will the street lamps illuminate? How exactly will he hold her so that everyone can see she doesn't belong to him, and he won't let go?
"Questions" by Stephen Dunn, from Local Visitations. W.W. Norton & company, 2003. Short bio of Stephen Dunn here.
I suppose private organizations are free to limit any speech or behavior they wish, so an affirmation of American ideals against the PC bullies seems like a good step.
The title is a real question, I'd like to hear what people think.
Our department was given a briefing on yet another huge company-wide initiative to aggregate and coalesce all data, allowing us to develop relationships across whole departments and sectors of the businesses we run. It's a tremendous opportunity, and one which is needed if you consider what Facebook and Google are doing with data (among many other firms that have well-developed data management groups).
I had several questions about the project. For one, was there a revenue impact which was expected to offset the cost, and if so how was it calculated? What was the timeline for introduction at departmental and company-wide levels? What were the expectations of the use of the data? Was it better to implement in a piecemeal fashion, department by department - continuing the current path we are on - or was their top-down approach more efficient and likely to yield better results? Each question received an answer, sometimes dismissive, which led to more questions.
I was viewed negatively for my inquisitiveness. I explained I wasn't opposed to the project, but that I'd seen projects like this many times. None have worked as expected and most never paid off. These were not reasons to avoid doing it, but it is good to ask questions and be sure. I was told to 'trust' the data scientists, none of whom I know, and don't stand in the way. I acquiesced, and ceased my questions. Groupthink is a powerful thing. Data was here to save our business, I was assured.
On the train ride home, I ran into a colleague from another department who is much closer to this project and he told me even more details about the project. For one, it was the third attempt by this team to implement the 'vision' (so much for trust!). For another, they were abandoning all the work done in the previous 2 operations and starting from scratch, meaning work which had been done on all the old systems had to be reassessed and either tossed or transferred to newer platforms. Finally, they'd spent exorbitant sums of money already, to the point that break-even was probably 10 years off, assuming they met their 4 year timeline. He listened to my questions and nodded, saying they were all the right questions and there was good reason to question the nature and scope of this project.
Google, Facebook and all the other firms with huge data systems have the benefit of being young and starting from scratch while new technologies were being introduced. This is how business works, it's part of the process of creative destruction. The newer companies benefit from untried, but potentially beneficial products, living or dying by their ability to manage and incorporate these ideas and technology. Older companies have to try and keep up, and many are incapable of doing so. However, these older firms need to be careful about the implementation. Data is as much about art as it is about what the data tells us, sometimes less is more. Sometimes your gut tells you as much as $10mm worth of information does. I have seen people collect information on months-long projects only to confirm suggestions which were made at the outset. The delays cost money. There are rare, very rare, occasions when the data tells us something different. Sometimes the reason it tells us something different is due to the time delay in collecting the data. Perhaps this is a form of Heisenberg's Cat played out in the realm of business.
I am a huge believer in collecting and managing data. My job relies on it. But as I tell my boss, data and technology are like Stradivarius violins. You can give me a Stradivarius and I will make awful noise with it. Give it to a concert violinist, and beautiful music is made. The same is true of data. Many data scientists today, I've found, make very basic mistakes in their assumptions about what data tells them. The most common is the confusion over causation and correlation. I have had arguments with PhDs over this very issue when they present correlative data without proving the linkage to causation.
Baseball is a great example of this point. Sabermetrics have revived and increased my interest in the game. Yet Sabermetrics have limits. A cute, sappy movie Trouble With The Curveillustrates where data intersects with knowledge and experience. Data can provide support, but it takes experience to know what that data is telling you.
Dr. Joy Bliss recently posted about this issue, as the problem has infected even the realm of medicine and health.
Michael Crichton famously warned us of the problem of politicized science and data. Sadly, many intelligent people remain ignorant of misplaced trust in data, demonizing critics without explaining fully why the critics' logic is flawed.
A company, like the one which employs me, is just as likely to politicize positions. We call it groupthink. In my briefing, I was not part of the groupthink. I enjoy being on the outside. I may be wrong at times, but when I am, I'm happy to know that I have played the role of Captain Obvious, asking difficult questions in a fashion to open up the thought process further - if it can be opened up further. Sadly, as I watch what happens in the office, I begin to understand why Progressives remain so prevalent in our society. They are incapable of moving past groupthink. If everyone else is doing it, it must be good - right?
You’re just not as tuned in to the “frightening realities” of the world as this kid is ... “If you do not believe that skin color, age, religious identity, sexuality, class or (dis)ability have an effect in cultural political or economic problems that we debate at universities, then it is you who is trying to remain comfortable despite such frightening realities.”
An associate is on a business trip to Alaska for 2 weeks. He sent me this pic from his office window overlooking the harbor. Cold and damp, he says, requiring a good cocktail hour.
The boys and I just spent 5 days hiking in the desert hills of Joshua Tree and the higher elevations at Idyllwild. Perhaps I'll post some photos later. It being Passover, we do not eat leavened cereal grains, so the bread in sandwiches is out. Craving calories, we went to the Jewish deli in Palm Springs, Sherman's, and found its solution to the Passover sandwich dilemma: a pound of corned beef wrapped in two big potato latkes (pancakes). Gluttonous heaven.
In dry climate areas, which much of California is, precious water must be provided from distant sources. As far as I know, in most of the US water is provided either from private wells of from for-profit water utilities or ordinary water companies. Water is market-priced or you pump your own.
California does not have market-pricing for water, yet they historically have had less of it than most parts of the US and, as agriculture boomed there just like the population, there was no market-induced water planning. The government (!) organized water. How does that work out?
I think it's generally a bad idea, but I have done it many times including around NYC. A good adventure for sure at night, but daytime is fine. Here's something, but it's the half-drunks and the immigrants in cars that are the problem and I do not think this will have any impact on them because they are too busy jostling cars and dinging pedestrians to worry about bikers:
It is indeed an eating disorder which is probably related to, and often overlaps, the other eating disorders. Unlike the other eating disorders, it seems harmless enough although irrational, a waste of time, and annoying to others. A waste of effort and money too. Basically another variant of the obsessional neuroses.
Vegans, organics, gluten freaks, Whole Foods, and all that silliness.
Nobody can define healthy eating and it doesn't matter as far as we can tell. Therefore, if you worry about food we say you just need to get a life. A social life, wholesome hobbies, etc. Unless you need to lose weight for health and vigor, to prevent arthritis and diabetes, etc, that is. Does your cholesterol count matter for anything? Not at all, unless you have the genetic disease of hypercholesterolemia which is detectable early in life. In that case, you take pills, cross your fingers, and pray.
I am on board. I'm the guy who had to litigate being required to rebuild the fence around my pool by the town after a flood knocked it down, but was forbidden to replace the fence around the pool by the state EPA because the area was technically wetlands. It cost me $12,000 in legal costs to finally get a waiver from the EPA. The new fence was installed in one day for $1500.
Next time, I will just quietly hire some Mexicans to put the fence back.
Mind you, just 60' from the end of my pool there is a highly-dangerous - and unfenced - small river with steep banks. A true attractive nuisance and a nice trout stream too.
Universities exist to provide students with the knowledge, skills, and culture that will prepare them for life, while enhancing the intellectual capital upon which we all depend. Evidently the two purposes are distinct. One concerns the growth of the individual, the other our shared need for knowledge. But they are also intertwined, so that damage to the one purpose is damage to the other. That is what we are now seeing, as our universities increasingly turn against the culture that created them, withholding it from the young.
The years spent at university belong with the rites of initiation studied by the Victorian anthropologists, in which those born into the tribe assume the burden of perpetuating it. If we lose sight of this, it seems to me, then we are in danger of detaching the university from its social and moral purpose, which is that of handing on both a store of knowledge and the culture that makes sense of it...
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"Sunny" - 
Photo: perfect for home or farm maintenance. 
His speech on the topic: