Roast beef now comes with (*bleah* caramel coloring)

I recently went to buy some deli roast beef and was surprised that a lot of it in packages on the rack said "Caramel color added." I passed on all this and got what I had previously been buying: Safeway's "Primo Taglio" roast beef.

Much to my surprise, Safeway (or its supplier) has joined the caramel color bandwagon, making roast beef

 look like corned beef:

Bleah! I'm not buying any more of this stuff; I'll stick with making my own  or buying at PCC.

Carbon-dioxide removal: our best chance?

There doesn't seem to be anything like the political consensus to reduce emissions, not to mention the continuing / increasing love of the U.S. driver for big pickup trucks and SUVs:

... and a lot less for the kinds of cars (both EVs) we'd have to move to in large numbers to have a hope of solving the carbon problem:

Nissan Leaf

Chevy Bolt

But in a recent New Yorker article, Elizabeth Kolbert interviews scientists who have developed techniques to actually remove carbon from the atmosphere.

For just 100 million of the trailer-sized modules, you can keep up with current emissions. Sound like a lot? There have been 700 million iPhones produced since 2007 ...

Let's get going on this!

Larry Smarr uses a supercomputer to direct his own surgery

I first heard of Larry Smarr a couple of years ago when he gave a talk at the University of Washington.

He's a big proponent of the Quantified Self, and recently demonstrated the value of his particular approach when he directed his own surgeon in getting his Crohn's disease fixed.

Hmm, I may have to try the Quantified Self Seattle Meetup group ...

A bank transfer app that works as expected

To be fair, Zelle is a big-company app that's being shared out to a bunch of member banks. I tried it in October and it was unusable on the Capital One app I tried. But recently some friends with Chase accounts have got it working well.

So I may have to give it another try ... but another friend sent me a payment with Square Cash, and that worked beautifully:

It doesn't try to get debit card information from the picture of your debit card, just has you type in the number. It took me only about 4 minutes to get it set up and working to accept my friend's payment.

Their (Square, Inc.) revenue model is simple: transfers are free via standard one-business-day delayed ACH, but they charge a fee for you to collect your money instantly.

I can wait for today's payment, but the instant fee is only 1 to 1.5% if I can't wait.

My main bank BECU is working on their Zelle function; Square Cash is a high bar to meet, but I'm looking forward to it!

The Press and Democracy: 1971 and 2018

My lovely wife and I went yesterday to see Steven Spielberg's latest:



This is the story of Daniel Ellsberg's leak of The Pentagon Papers and the Washington Post's decision to publish excerpts after the New York Times was blocked by a federal judge.

The Times, the Post and the other papers of the day that published these excerpts stood up to the Nixon Administration and got the story out to the public. (Excellent movie, by the way.)

As you know, the situation has changed since 1971 ... our democracy has been challenged lately through fake stuff on social media ... and just today the New York Times had a long article on fake twitter accounts ...

Thanks, press for keeping on this issue ... New York Times and ProPublica and your local newspaper all deserve your support!

Here's to a less crazy political future ...

Maybe their pager was lost ... for 10 months?

Opentable's web interface is finally working again:

I can't believe it took this long, but I'm happy to see it working again as I don't want to be restricted to the mobile interface.

Maybe they found their missing pager or smelled competitors on their tail!

Bon apetit ...

Two books on old gods returning to manipulate humanity

My friend Curt recommended this book the last time I saw him:

I found an audiobook copy via the local library and tried it. It took a couple of chapters to really hook me, but overall I found it to be terrific.

It's set in a future society where there's been a political realignment after the Decline, which was caused by a virus called Mephistopheles ... leaving the "mark of Cain" on some of those affected.

Out of this decline has emerged a new North American state called the RUNA, surrounded by "provinces" that are not part of this entity. One of the protagonists, Justin, has been exiled by the RUNA and is living in backwater Panama, when he is called back from exile to serve his country again.

Justin is a "servitor" who inspects religious entities for conformance to the RUNA's rules. The RUNA was founded on science and rationality and forbids any worship of "fictitious entities." But Justin has seen some unexplainable things in his work ....

The other protagonist is May, a gorgeous ("9" genetically -- near perfect) Praetorian ... supersoldier. She meets Justin in Panama at the beginning of the book ...

And any more will spoil the story ... trust me on this one and just try this one for the first 40-50 pages at least. Five stars!

An older one that hits some of the same themes in a different way:

A man named Shadow is the protagonist. At the beginning of the book he is in prison and upon his release runs into (by chance, it looks to be) to this guy named Wednesday who says "you're late!"

Wednesday is a grifter, he says, and he finally persuades Shadow to work for him ... and complications ensue.

This one got me from the first few pages ... you won't be disappointed. Five stars!